


Concerto

by wecara



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, College, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Smut, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Self-Harm, Slow Build, Slow Burn, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-04-19 11:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wecara/pseuds/wecara
Summary: A post-war fic in which Draco turns to music and Harry turns to art to help relieve some of the stress that the war has given them. Both are riddled with unresolved mental and emotional problems but they have found some semblance of comfort through their muggle friends and an easy life at their muggle college. Even though they attend the same school, their paths have never crossed.But now, thanks to Harry's reluctance to complete a project and Draco's strange, plague-like symptoms, the two are thrown into a thrilling mystery involving murder, greed, love, pining, and Voldemort's annoying need to have the last word.





	1. The Lethargic Exposition

_Another day, another dime_

_Another dollar, another crime._

A pair of groggy green eyes open, only to be assaulted by a horrible bright light and a searing headache. Harry James Potter groans and turns onto his stomach, urging himself to get back to sleep. He is very much hungover and can already tell this week will be shit.

What were those words again? It sounded like a poem. Nowadays he finds his brain pulling odd words together at random intervals, perhaps offering him subconscious inspiration. God knows he could use that, his most recent project posing an unusually difficult challenge. He’ll write it--whatever _it_ was--down when he officially wakes up. He has to have at least a few more hours until his afternoon class.

Harry knows this delusion is not true. If the light pouring from the blinds was any indication, it is well past 11:00, meaning that the moment he steals a glance at his clock will be the moment he is forced to get out of his soft, warm bed, rush into his clothes, and sprint out the door. He’d rather prolong this sleepy peace, even if it means he doesn’t have time to grab breakfast. Maybe hunger will offer a new point of view he can use for this stupid project. Somewhere in his thinking, he’s tossed around to stare at the shining red letters on the alarm clock.

Oh, and alarmed he is. The class starts in two minutes. It’s a five minute sprint from his apartment to campus, an added three minutes from the front gate to his class, in the very fucking farthest reaches of the school. If it were any other class, he would accept his fate and skip, but it’s Tuesday, and he will not miss his favorite class.

After jamming his glasses onto his face and taking four pills of advil (the bottle conveniently placed on his bedside table from his last morning hangover), Harry miserably drags himself out of bed and throws on one of his many work tee shirts, a pair of ragged jeans in a similar condition, and a dirty pair of black high tops. At least he doesn’t have to think about what he wants to wear today, the Tuesday class requires a specific set of clothes he doesn’t mind getting dirty. He slings his bag over his shoulder on the way out the door, cramming his wallet and a large water bottle into it at the last second.

The run to the Delanie School of Art and Design--a sub-campus of the main university--isn’t too bad. While his phone told him the weather would be just warm enough to be uncomfortable, Harry finds that a pleasant cloud cover helps keep the air mild, and a soft breeze ruffles his untamed hair.

He takes the stairs two at a time and bursts through the foggy glass door of classroom 3F just in time to see the five other students disbanding from a circle of chairs placed in the middle of the room. Harry’s heart sinks. They only have circle meetings when the professor actually has an announcement or instruction to give. Other than that, the students of 3F are free to spend the entire time working.

“Professor?” He calls tentatively, still standing in the doorway. A man standing in the center of the circle turns, feigning surprise.

“Oh, Harry! Nice of you to join us!” He responds, taking slow, long steps towards Harry, who smiles sheepishly. The professor is wearing what might have once been a smart white shirt, but after years of use the buttons have been broken and replaced by a myriad of multicolored stones, brooches, and other mismatched baubles that he picked up or fashioned himself. The shirt is only half tucked into his faded jeans, and sags off his thin, wiry frame. If not for the rainbow suspenders looped around his bony shoulders, his body would be lost within its wrinkled depths. He has large square glasses, the frames a rich amber. Behind the lenses, his eyes are a muddied hazel, garnished with crow’s feet and laugh lines across his sharp face. His hair is mousy brown and almost as messy as Harry’s, matching with his short beard and thick arm hair. His fingers are long and pale, and dried clay is stuck in his fingernails and the creases of his knuckles. His bare feet make soft tapping noises as he approaches Harry, still standing in the doorway.

“Sorry Professor, I slept in.” He mutters sheepishly, running a hand awkwardly through his hair. The Professor grins widely, showing off perfect white teeth.

“I can tell! You look like a wreck.” Harry rolls his eyes as a firm hand clasps around his shoulder. Professor guides him towards his desk to their right, which is shoved clumsily into the corner beside the whiteboard. Papers cling to the edges of the chipped golden wood, one breath away from toppling to the floor. Markers, pencils, rulers, and a few paintbrushes are scattered here and there, the multicolored plastic cups designated for each utensil lay long neglected to the left side of the desk, the orange one labeled “ballpoints” precariously balanced on the edge.

Professor disrupts the careful stillness by jarringly ripping open one of the top drawers and rummaging inside it’s messy depths.

“What we were discussing--ouch,” he tosses a pointy metal compass aside before continuing-- “before you finally decided to walk in was the most recent project.”

Harry breathes a sigh of relief. At least it wasn’t something new. He would’ve liked to be there to ask questions and hear the full explanation. Professor had a habit of accidentally leaving crucial bits of information out during a recounting, especially if it was something extremely important or fresh off the furnace of outrageous ideas that is his brain. The students quickly learned that it was always best to be there the first time around.

“As you know, I’m asking you to gain inspiration from music--where are those damn things…” He slams the drawer shut and moves on to the one beneath it before continuing, causing the yellow cup (This one labeled “dumb fucks,” which probably meant to hold colored pencils) to topple to the floor, “I understand that a few of the students are having trouble narrowing down your subject to one song--Aha! There they are!” Professor stands up quickly, waving two pieces of paper in the air. Harry’s stomach starts to churn with anxiety. It isn’t that he’s having trouble narrowing his song choices down, the problem is that he has nothing to choose from.

No one in his new life knows much about his old one. No one knows that he went through a war, no one knows that he and countless others that he loved were killed. Some close friends know that he had a troubling childhood, and that he had an accident resulting in him being scared of loud noises and giving him a bad habit of drinking himself silly at least once a week because his lucid nightmares are so much worse than his drunken ones. They also know that he can’t join them at night clubs because he’s afraid of music.

About six months ago, when he’d just moved into his dorm, he heard music for the first time. His roommate--a troll of a boy named Jonathan who always smelled like poorly concealed body odor and firewhiskey breath--invited him to go to a party with all the other freshmen. When they got there, the room was hot and the air was moist. It was dark save for a few multi colored flashing lights that whipped across the room from fixtures on the ceiling. As if the avada kedavra green and expelliarmus red lights weren’t bad enough reminders of the war, there was a heart-crushingly loud noise echoing from tall black speakers at the front of the room. The song started out with heavy, booming drum beats, and Harry immediately felt himself begin to panic. It sounded too much like the crumbling stone from the battle of hogwarts, the hollow thuds as the bodies of his friends hit the ground.

The sound shifted, however, to a more lighthearted and musical sort of sound. A woman’s voice floated over the crowd as people sang along, and his heart rate slowed. Although the woman sounded much like a robot, it wasn’t so bad. At one point Harry even started to enjoy himself, before someone shouted, “Here comes the drop!”

The drop? What was that? The music seemed to quiet down slowly but surely, as if it was fading out. He was baffled as to why everyone in the room seemed so excited for such a decline in energy.

Then all at once, he understood. The speakers went completely silent for a few tense moments, then everyone around him leaped into a roaring, jumping frenzy. The music pulsed through the crowd with renewed vigor, so loud and crashing that Harry could feel it in his bones. Everyone was screaming as the sounds of rocks toppling onto bodies crashed through the battlefield. Loud zapping noises from wands on all sides shot back and forth, and the flashing of spells left spots in his eyes. A flood of green light overtook him, and Harry screamed with terror, his fear swept up with the energy of the rest of the crowd.

He sprinted from the room, somehow managing to get himself back to his dorm. Fuck trying to be normal, fuck friends, fuck Hermione’s “muggle integration therapy,” fuck all of it. He was better off alone. By the end of the week he’d bought and moved into his apartment, well out of the way of his old dorm and that wretched Jonathan.

When Professor had announced the next assignment, Harry knew that he would be forced to either tell him--and therefore his classmates, who were the only people he felt he could be himself around--everything in order to get out of it, or fake the whole thing.

This “faking it” had turned out to be a lot harder than it sounded.

“I’ve decided to offer anyone who is interested an intriguing new musical point of view!” Professor continues. Harry snaps to attention, already mentally preparing a polite way to decline the offer. “These are tickets to the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra’s Friday night performances for the next three weeks. My wife and I are season ticket holders, but we won’t be able to make it until she gets back from visiting her sister in Connecticut. I thought I’d offer one of our struggling students the opportunity to attend.”

Harry looks thoughtfully at the tickets. He’d never considered classical music before. It’s supposed to be light and fancy-sounding, right? Probably nothing like that terrifying ‘dubstep’ from the party all those months ago. Perhaps this could be a good way to circumvent his dilemma?

“Aubry expressed an interest--”

“He can have them,” a girl with cherry red hair pulled into a loose ponytail calls from behind a large canvas, “I think I’ve found a good piano piece I’d like to try out.” She pokes her head out from behind it to grin at Harry, who shoots her a grateful smile. She has a small map of freckles across her thin, triangular nose, and her skin is slightly sunkissed, especially on her toned, muscular arms, which are exposed by a tight-fitting grey tank top. She’s wearing black sweatpants that say “SRIRACHA” on them, and her white running shoes have little specks of red paint all over them.

“What piece, Aubs?” Asks a smaller girl to Aubry’s right. The girl in question is working on a 6 foot wide canvas, but it’s only about a foot and a half tall. Rather than sit on her stool, she prefers to stand. Despite this, her birdlike frame still falls about one inch shorter than everyone else sitting. She’s wearing a gigantic pink sweater that Harry helped her pick out from the thrift store, and robin’s-egg-blue colored shorts that are all but consumed by the long hem of her sweater. Her skin and clothes are in the worst shape, paint-splatter wise. Chunks of green and blue are tangled in her short, espresso brown curls, with part of her bangs sticking to her forehead in yellow. The sleeves of her sweater are rolled up to her shoulders, revealing thin, pale arms and delicate fingers coated entirely in blue and green and white. Her bare feet and legs have swipes of paint across them that look almost deliberate.

Aubry smiles warmly. “The ‘Dear’ one you showed me,” she replies. The short girl--Lucy--returns her smile brightly.

“Isn’t it just breathtaking?” Lucy says dreamily. Her round cheeks and button nose warm slightly as they begin a passionate discussion about the ins and outs of the musical phrases. Harry’s attention returns to the professor.

“Well then,” He says, “is it alright if I take them?”

“Sure thing, bucko!” Professor hands him the tickets and ushers him towards his own station, next to a boy named Arch. “Until then, you better get brainstorming for your next piece. It’s another choice one coming up. Maybe you can get a head start on it while you’re waiting for the performance?”

Harry scrambles over to his easel, throwing himself onto the stool with such zeal that it almost topples. “Yes Professor! Sorry again that I was late!”

Harry’s station is in the opposite corner as the professor’s desk, and he absolutely adores it. Since it’s in the corner, he has two walls to work on instead of just one, and it gives him the flexibility he needs to make his work. The Arts building is plain, with boring white walls and tiles, and bright fluorescent lights to simulate natural light. The students fill it with wonder. The walls are covered by sketches, random doodles, and sometimes full murals. Only Juniors and above are allowed to decorate the main hallway walls, but in each classroom each student has their own workspace where they have the walls all to themselves. 3F, in Harry’s opinion, is the most wonderful. Not only is Professor an incredible artist and teacher, but the students are absolutely brilliant, each having their own strengths.

Arch portrays movement and fluidity through his pieces so immaculately that you almost feel yourself wrapped up with the characters within, leaping or reaching or climbing right next to them. Aubry is a quick learner with all manner of mediums, and she shows it. She can use an odd mix of broken CDs, torn out dictionary pages, oil pastels, and graphite to create chaotically beautiful works of art. Lucy is an excellent emotional painter, and a master of creativity and colors. Harry once was on edge for an entire day after taking just a brief look at a of hers piece about anxiety. The other two members of his class, Hyeouk (HK) and Damian are technical masters. HK specializes in black and white, Damian’s colored pencils seem to come alive on the page. All together, the room is a magnificent mess. Harry couldn’t be happier.

“Forget to set your alarm again?” Arch asks, leaning over to smirk at Harry as he unloads his supplies and places them in their appropriate places. Harry smiles grimly and shakes his head.

“Nope, hangover.” He replies. Arch’s smirk turns into a sympathetic smile. His brownish-black eyes glimmer with kind pity. Arch is gigantic. Everything about him seems to be twice everyone else’s size, much opposed to Lucy, who seems to be half of a normal person. His hands are long, like spider’s legs, which stretch up to muscular arms and broad shoulders. Standing at six feet eight inches tall, he’s learned how to grow into his size. Today he wears a mustard yellow tee shirt that stretches across his muscular trunk, and navy blue shorts showing off espresso-colored legs, and a massive pair of caramel colored high tops. His hair is short and clings to his skull in sharp lines around his forehead. He has full lips and a squarish nose, framed by sharp cheekbones, which are dusted with a rich golden highlighter. Harry’s heart fills for his classmates. One of his favorite parts of being an art student is that no one cares if you look different, or if you break certain gender roles. Everyone has their own artistic voice, and everyone somehow applies that voice into every part of their lives--including their physical appearance.

“Hang in there, buddy. And call me next time, I can try to help you get to bed without any of that.” Arch says kindly. Harry nods, and Arch, satisfied, turns back to his dizzying painting of hip-hop dancers twisting themselves into fascinating shapes.

Pulling out his sketchbook and grabbing his pen from his bag, Harry begins to sketch. He’d discovered his love for art because of Hermione. Apparently he’d been ‘closing himself off’ and he was ‘depressed,’ so she suggested he try to let out his ‘negative feelings in a positive and constructive way,’ and ‘apply a creative outlet.’ Harry, unimpressed though wanting to keep Hermione’s therapeutic antics at bay, decided to give painting a try. There were never any art classes at Hogwarts, and before that, well…

After his first terrible painting, he knew that he’d discovered something wonderful. Through careless abstraction and symbolism he learned to spit his feelings onto the paper with ease, and it was so much more than just a relief to all his friends, they could now see clearly what he had failed to express to them with words. What really happened at King’s Cross, how dark it was every night seventh year, how he still hurt inside no matter how well he tried to hide it.

It was nice at first, watching everyone’s sympathy turn into empathy, but he soon found their pity unbearable. Even Ron, the only friend who always understood him, treated him like a delicate china cup, as if he could break at any moment. Though surrounded by loved ones, he still felt very much alone.

So to college he went. He submitted a few of his better pieces to a college across the world, Los Angeles, California, and was accepted into their arts program. Life was better. He had new friends, and while he still kept in touch with the old ones, he knew that life was going on without him. Ron and Hermione had two kids now, and Teddy was more than happy to stay with “Grandma Molly” at the burrow until Harry graduated. Harry’s heart hurt sometimes, however, when he realized that his godson might know less of his own godfather than anyone else.

By the time class was up, Harry was well on his way to perfecting his next idea. He wished he could just skip this music assignment altogether and get on with the Choice (every other project was a freebie, the students were allowed to draw whatever they wanted to build their portfolios), but he knew that he’d have to get it done somehow. At least now he didn’t have to try to pretend.

Lucy skips out of the classroom quickly--“I’ve got Chem after this and I CAN’T. FUCKING. FAIL.”--With Aubry hot on her trail. Arch takes his time getting ready--“Basketball practice, man. If I have an excuse me to  get there late, I will.”--But Harry, Damian, and HK have free periods before their evening classes, so they usually linger in the art room to keep working. Harry wanders over towards HK, who’s bent over his work, his pencil moving frantically across the page in large, scribbling strokes. Harry whistles lowly.

“That looks great, HK. Taking a different approach?” He asks. HK looks up and grins wide. He’s half Korean, half Vietnamese, and his face is round, soft, and perpetually stuck in an amicable smile. His hair is dyed bright red, and pieces of it stick out at random from his navy blue hoodie. He’s just over five feet five inches tall, and he rocks an ‘intentionally ragged’ look, with clothes just a little bit too big for him, his red sneakers unlaced, jeans fraying at the cuffs, and a preposterous number of holes riddled across them. A faint dusting of charcoal eyeliner coats the rims of his upper and lower eyelids.

“Yeah, I wanted to try to incorporate some of Arch’s and Lucy’s weird shading styles to make it look a bit more frenzied,” He replies. Harry studies the piece. It’s on 18x24 drawing paper, and it pictures two figures pulling away from each other, but their shadows--which are drawn as gooey and dripping, this effect intensified by his varying levels of pencil pressure--are stuck together in a desperate embrace.

“It’s sort of about being in denial about your feelings, y’know? I kinda wanted to incorporate religious symbols in their clothes, but decided it would be too much. I just settled for making their hands like that--see?” HK gestures towards the two figures, who have their hands pressed flat together while facing away from each other. Their eyes are screwed shut in concentration.

“They’re praying,” Harry responds thoughtfully, although now a little confused. “Why did you want them to be religious?” HK looks at him, dumbfounded.

“Harry, they’re gay,” he responds plainly. Harry’s eyes widen, now looking at the piece with new light. Yes, he can see now, the two figures are very obviously male, one is slightly taller than the other, with clean blonde hair. The other has longer, messier black hair, and is hunched over himself slightly, whether it be because of guilt, heartache, anger, or a mix of all three, Harry wasn’t sure. The shadows between them cling to each other desperately, melting together in dripping, scribbly anguish.

“They look so…” Harry struggles for the right word, but there isn’t one. “...sad,” he finishes lamely. HK shrugs noncommittally, but Harry can see he looks a little bit uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t a very great place to be,” Harry’s eyes snap over to HK, who has returned to his crazed scribbling, but he looks distracted and a bit nervous.

“This is about you?!” Harry asks, his eyes quickly returning to the canvas in front of him. Now he can clearly see, through the hunched posture of the shorter boy, HK’s soft cheekbones, smallish, round nose, and thin eyes, pooling with hurt. His usually smiling lips are pulled into a snarl of frustration and torment. HK nods solemnly.

“Who’s the other boy?!” Harry cries. HK’s mouth curls into a loose, lazy sort of smirk, and he leans way back in his chair.

“Damian,” HK responds. Harry whirls around to face the other boy sitting behind him, who had been quietly working during the whole exchange, Harry almost forgot he was even there.

“Yep, that’s me,” Damian says without removing his indigo eyes from the canvas he was working on. He appeared like he was trying not to laugh. Harry was at a loss for words. Turning back to HK, he noticed a poorly concealed giggle escape from his mouth before HK managed to pull a straight face.

“I thought… I thought you guys didn’t know each other until college…?” At this, Damian and HK’s resolve completely crumbles, and before Harry can react Damian is on the floor and HK has fallen back in his chair so far it nearly tips, hysterical laughter filling the echoey room. Harry is still terribly confused. “What’s so…?”

“He’s not the one the picture is about, Harry!” HK responds, trying and failing to pull himself together. “He’s just the reference image!”

“Yeah, Harry, I love ya, but do you really think we could fly all the way back to Texas to get an actual photo of the guy?” Damian adds, pulling himself up from the ground. “Hello, sir, excuse me me? Your forbidden gay ex-lover is here to take pictures of you. Say hi to the ‘rents for me!” At this sarcastic comment, HK and Damian dissolve into another fit of giggles, and Harry can’t help but chuckle along with them.

“Alright, alright, calm down dickfaces, it isn’t _that_ funny,” Harry says, but there’s no hardness in his voice.

“Easy for you to say,” HK gasps, “you didn’t see your face!” Harry rolls his eyes, turning his attention away from the red-haired boy and towards Damian, who is still giggling slightly, and Harry thinks his tanned cheeks must be aching from all that stupid grinning.

Damian is the exact opposite of HK, appearance wise. He’s a south California native, so his skin is tanned a deep golden color at all times in the year. During the summertime, you can faintly see freckles that develop on his thin nose, defined cheekbones, and arms, but on a cloudy November day such as this one they’re nowhere to be found. His hair is sandy blond, and he claims that it used to be a reddish-brown color before the sun beat it out of him. His eyes are strikingly blue, and so dark they almost seem purple. He’s built like a track racer, with long, thin limbs and a flat stomach. He’s relatively toned, but his only exercise is year-round surfing, so he has more muscle on his legs than anything else. He’s in a pale yellow tourist shirt featuring the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, and--as a proud member of the university’s ridiculous 365 Shorts Club--baby blue swim trunks.

Of course, personality wise, the two boys sitting before Harry could be twins. They are nothing but 100% pure Hufflepuff material: kind, silly, sweet, and extremely hardworking, not to mention horrible liars. They’re also madly in love with each other, although neither of them can see it. Harry finds it infuriatingly adorable how both will blush and stutter awkwardly if they accidentally touch, or how they sometimes catch each other staring with what can only be described as ‘heart eyes.’

“What’s this one about?” Harry asks Damian, who is now working diligently on his canvas, though a small smile still ghosts his lips and his eyes still have a slight sparkle to them.  

“Dealer by Gemini Club,” the blond replies, leaning back in his stool so Harry can peek at the picture. It features a girl leaning over a sparkling chrome motorcycle as it races down a dusty road. He’s used purple and blue to emphasize the shadows, with orange and yellow as the highlights, so it looks like she’s riding at sunset, or maybe dawn.  Her shadow stretches behind her like a cape, rippling in dark blue across the rocky landscape. He’s only half done, but it still looks incredible. “The lyrics don’t exactly match the message, but I feel like the instrumentals sound like something you’d listen to while riding a motorcycle,” Damian explains. Harry nods.

“I’ve never heard it before, but the picture looks brilliant,” he says admirably. Damian’s tanned cheeks flush slightly with pride.

“Thanks,” he shrugs and turns to grab another pencil, “I like it too.”

Harry smiles excitedly. After just a month of spending hours upon hours with his artistic peers, he noticed that while all artists struggle with self-esteem issues, Damian seems to have it the worst. Every piece just isn’t good enough for him, and he has trouble accepting compliments. He once confided to the group during a circle meeting that his insecurity surrounding his art bled into other parts of his life, and he ended up ruining a lot of his relationships back home because he felt like the compliments his loved ones gave him were lies to make him feel better. He therefore started to worry that they lied about other things, such as being his friends in the first place. Hearing him say something positive about his own work, even as simple as “I like it too,” must have been an incredible feat for him.

“You should be!” Harry responds, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The blond flinches and neary topples off his stool in surprise. Harry bites back a laugh, holding his hands out in apology. “Oh, god, sorry about that. I’ll leave you alone now.” Damian shakes his head and chuckles, but doesn’t protest. Harry returns to his station, a pit of dread now growing in his stomach.

Without his friends to distract him, he’s forced to turn his attention back to his blank canvas. He doesn’t want to think about the symphony on Friday, or how he’s going to paint a picture based purely off the memory of the songs, or if he’ll even be able to sit through it all--what if his guess is incorrect, and the music is just as loud and jarring as the electronic bullshit from that party?

After about an hour of sketching out some more ideas for his next choice piece, Harry packs up his tools and leaves the art room feeling better, but still slightly deflated. His mind has been whirling with all sorts of worst-case scenarios for Friday night, even with the distraction of his work. As much as he’s grateful for the professor introducing an option he wouldn’t have thought of otherwise, he can’t help but worry. What if he has another panic attack? There won’t be a ginormous crowd of drunk college students and air thick with bass to cover the sounds of his panicked crying and heavy breathing. It’ll just be hundreds, maybe even thousands of classical music fans listening silently to what would’ve been a pleasant evening if not for Harry. He doesn’t know how big the auditorium is, he tries to assure himself. He doesn’t even know if anyone still likes classical music! Sure, Professor and his wife are an exception, but they’re eccentric weirdos who also enjoy sewing and playing insanely competitive games of live action Battleship. Perhaps he’ll arrive at the symphony hall and be the only person there. Maybe they’ll even cancel the show because of low attendance. He wouldn’t get his musical inspiration, but perhaps Professor would benevolently extend the project’s deadline?

Or, an annoying voice in the back of Harry’s head taunts, you’ll be the only one there, so everyone in the symphony will watch you break down. As if to beat his own intrusive thoughts into submission, Harry buts the palm of his hand against his head as he marches down a cobbled path to his favorite café. There’s no proof that the music will even be triggering, so why is he worrying? Similar thoughts of attempted comfort are still doing their best to ease his troubled mind when he steps inside the heavy wooden doors.

The café is perfect, Harry thinks as he strolls inside, the smells of coffee and gingerbread filling his lungs. The warm air envelops him in an embrace akin to Molly Weasley’s. His nose, cheeks, and fingertips, chilly from the cooler outside air, are immediately rejuvenated as if someone has cast a warming charm. He can’t help the pleased grin that melts across his face as the anxious knots of worry begin to loosen in his brain.

This café has always felt like home. It’s semi-circular, and covering the round walls are tall, glossy windows framed by rich brown wood. Scattered lazily across the scuffed-up hardwood floors are seats varying from plush leather recliners to smooth wooden chairs. A few couches with lumpy pillows and downy blankets are pushed in the far corner, making a circle that friends can use to play games and eat together. The color scheme for the décor changes depending on the seasons and holidays, and since halloween has just ended the pumpkin-shaped throw pillows and linty purple “beware of ghosts” blankets have been replaced by amicable autumn decorations that remind Harry gleefully of the Gryffindor common room. There are small, circular tables for lone students looking for a change of scenery in their studying, and a taller boardroom style table in the center of the room surrounded by bar stools for bigger groups.

At the straight end of the semicircle is a long counter where you order at one end of the counter, then can follow along to the other end as the employees prepare your food behind a short glass partition. The employees work fast and effortlessly, and it fascinates Harry to see muggles working with almost the same efficiency as magic allows. After the war, Harry had bought a large flat for himself with every domestic magical shortcut the real-estate agent could shove down his throat. After living in a place where he didn’t have to move to go up the stairs or brush his own teeth, and lights, stoves, and faucets turned on to his personal preferences by themselves, he never thought he’d be able to live with the slow clumsiness of muggle methods again. His first visit to this café had been an extremely humbling experience and he now mourns the two years he had spent lazily allowing magic to do even the smallest of tasks for him, wishing instead that he had learned to flip twelve pancakes in less than two seconds like Carolynn—one of the café’s employees—can. Carolynn is the one to greet Harry as he approaches the far end of the counter to place his order.

“Hi, Harry!” She says cheerfully. Incredibly, the entire staff seems to have taken the time to memorize all of their regular customers’ names, and Harry is nothing if not a regular.

“Hey, Carolynn,” Harry replies, attempting to mimic her upbeat tone. “Can I have the veggie spring rolls with peanut sauce and a medium hot chocolate, please?” He asks as Carolynn punches his order into the cash register.

“Sure thing!” She replies, “would you like anything else?” She asks, already knowing the answer. Harry’s order has remained more or less the same since he first started coming here, sometimes he fluctuates hot chocolate flavors, and his entrée choice changes about every six months once he gets tired of ordering the same thing, but he keeps the general idea simple: a healthy meal so he doesn’t get out of shape, and the sweetest, creamiest drink on the menu. Carolynn turns and places the order receipt on the magnetic board to her left as Harry smiles and shakes his head.

“Then that’ll be—“

“7.79, got it!” Harry responds for her, already handing her a ten dollar bill. She smiles, and Harry can’t help but smile back. Carolynn is kind and beautiful, and Harry thinks may be in love with her.

She has long, glossy blond hair that falls in waterfalls from her ponytail and down her back. Her face is round like a cherub’s and her eyes are brown and kind, and when she smiles they sparkle and her cheeks turn pink. Her hands are deft and delicate, though covered in faint burn scars from what Harry can only assume to be pancake-flipping accidents. She makes Harry happy, and while they’ve never spoken outside the café, he doesn’t really think that matters.

His order arrives quickly, and he takes it to go sit down in one of the plush chairs and try to relax when an unwelcome thought occurs to him. What if the symphony does nothing? He has to have a backup, and he doesn't even have any ideas jotted down. Reluctantly spinning on his heel, Harry instead walks back out the doors and into the now uncomfortably cold evening air. He'll have to save his evening of relaxation for another date. For now, he has a fake piece to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... This is it! This is the beginning of my (hopefully) first ever slow-build fanfic! I'm in desperate need of some betas, both of my current ones are resigning due to personal reasons. If anyone is willing to take that spot please let me know! That is... If anyone actually reads this... I suppose I'll have to wait and see.  
> Cheers to the future?


	2. Doing it Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm gonna try to keep this brief. I don't like adding notes at the beginning of chapters because I feel like it interrupts the flow of the story.  
> From this point on, things will get VERY triggering. Self harm and suicide mentions will be prevalent, along with mentions of anxiety disorders, poor coping mechanisms, and other things that could potentially be hazardous to anyone who is sensitive to mental and emotional baggage. PLEASE stay safe and DO NOT read this work if you think it will be dangerous for you. I enjoy reading angst, as many others do, so I understand how to keep myself healthy and safe and I understand my limits. PLEASE understand your own, and seek help if you are EVER in a rough spot.  
> Just in case you read this work (this chapter in particular will go slightly into depth of self harm and depression) and didn't realize that it would have a negative effect on you, here are some hotlines you can call anytime. I want everyone to be safe, and there's no shame in asking for help.  
> National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> 24-hour Self Injury Foundation hotline: 1-800-334-HELP  
> US Crisis Text Line: text "CONNECT" to 741741

      Draco has had a shit day. He woke up to the sound of Quiz wincing in pain on the ground of their dorm room. He’d been about to tell the burly man to shut up so he could get more sleep when he’d seen it.

      The blood. All the ruby red blood, flowing down his arm and through his fingers as he tried to stifle it with his hand. Draco leaped into action, sprinting to the medicine cabinet where he knew the location of the bandages and pain relief cream by heart, then carefully treated Quiz’s arm, which had been caught on a rough bit of metal sticking out from his bed frame as he’d reached out to slap the “off” button on his alarm clock. Draco remained relatively calm through the whole process, but his hands had been shaking minutely. Once Quiz was out of the house, reassuring Draco through chuckles that “Yes, yes! I’m fine, Dray! Thanks so much for your help, now get some fucking sleep!” Draco allowed himself to break down. He’d curled himself into as tight a ball that his long limbs would allow and sobbed silently until he fell unconscious. When he woke up, a whole fifteen minutes late for his calculus class, his joints were stiff and cramping from being rolled into such a violent position, and his throat was sore from the few unshed tears he’d managed to keep down. He decided calculus wasn’t worth it and stayed in bed until twenty minutes from practice, when he got up to choke down an apple and a granola bar, then walk the long trip from the dorms to the music halls at the other end of campus.

      He should consider himself lucky, he thinks. The weather is cool enough that it isn’t uncomfortable in his ripped blue jeans embroidered with flowers and plain black tee shirt. He also only has to carry a relatively small instrument compared to some of his more unfortunate comrades in the orchestra, such as his friend, Gina Pepper. The strawberry blonde is heaving a gigantic black cello case down the cobbled path to the music halls with great difficulty--however she hides it well. Her somewhat muscular arms are covered by a thick denim jacket, and she keeps her head held high in a stance that screams confidence. The only sign of exertion is in her blotchy red cheeks, but, Draco supposes, they could easily be passed off as windswept. 

      Spotting him, Gina smiles brightly and waves. Draco returns the smile and veers off of his path to join her. Gina’s smile quickly turns to a frown.

      “Look at you,” she says, quirking her head in his direction, causing some of her frizzy shoulder-length hair to bounce in front of her face, “in your tee shirt and jeans, aren't you freezing?” Draco laughs.

      “Oh, you know me. I could wear sandals in the snow.” He replies, earning a huff from the girl as she adjusts her grip on the cello case. 

      “It’s that damn metabolism, I swear to god. You get to eat anything you want and never get fat, only warm. It isn’t fair!” She complains. Draco grins and shrugs his shoulders.

      “What can I say, I’m a natural-born heartstopper.” At this the pair of blonds snicker before reaching the sloping arches of the Mechi Orchestral Music Hall. Draco turns his silver eyes up to gaze at the magnificent domed ceiling as they enter. With its shimmering golden spirals and kaleidoscopic stained glass murals, he always thinks it such a shame that he’s stuck staring at notes on a piece of paper all day instead of fixating on the gorgeous acoustical masterpiece. He supposes that’s one of the perks of being concertmaster. Once he’s memorized the latest concerto, he doesn’t have to look at music or anything, really, other than to check in with the conductor every few minutes to make sure the rest of the orchestra is working with him. 

      Draco takes his place in the front row of the viola section and begins unpacking his equipment. Upon unlatching the magnetic clasp and unzipping the top of the case from the bottom, he’s greeted by a gorgeous sight that immediately brightens his day. He will never tire of the beauty of his instrument, Jamie. She has a glossy golden exterior and perfectly cleaned strings stretching all the way up to her smooth polished scroll. Her brother, Charles the bow, is made of thin, flexible dark wood and cream-colored strings coated in the perfect amount of pine-sap-smelling rosin that makes Jamie sing. Draco inhales the woodsy scent deeply before removing the necessary paraphernalia from his case and attaching the shoulder rest to nestle comfortably onto his broad, bony collarbone. He leads the orchestra in tuning and a warm up, then the conductor begins the rehearsal. 

      Primary conductor and director of the college’s musical program Carol Lee Grass, also known as Chief, offers no mercy. From the beginning of the four-hour rehearsal to the end, she pauses each piece every two or three measures to nitpick the ensemble’s intonation, dynamics, and most of all bowing. While the orchestra gets a few prolonged breaks when Chief goes off on a tangent retelling some personal story about her own growth as a musician or creating an elaborate metaphor about cars and shaping a phrase, these breaks are sparse. By the time the rehearsal comes to a close, Draco’s arms feel like lead and he is ready to fall asleep and never wake up--despite having slept for most of the day already. The music invigorates him mentally, exhausts him physically. 

      “Be here at 6:00 tomorrow to warm up,” Chief shouts over the bustling students packing up their musical equipment, “Draco is doing the viola concerto  _ and  _ playing with the first violins for the Holmberg, so firsts, make sure to add an extra chair!” Draco sighs but smiles weakly. The next couple of performances are gonna be difficult, that’s for sure. 

      When he gets back to his dorm, Quiz is already getting ready to leave for their night out. Upon dropping his instrument underneath his bed, Draco turns around to size the dark skinned man up. 

      “What do you think, Dray? You’re the style expert,” he says, spreading his hands out to allow Draco a full scope of his outfit. He’s wearing a short-sleeved button-up that’s pale yellow and decorated with tiny cartoon flamingos, with the top two buttons undone to partially reveal his sculpted coffee-colored chest. Comfortable-looking black washed jeans don his beefy legs, and his ratty pair of gray converse cover his feet. He’s also opted to wear his glasses--except they’re new. His old pair were more squarish and hipster, but the new ones have thin round golden frames that remind Draco of a certain green-eyed classmate with hair equally as curly and unkempt as Quiz’s. Unfortunately, Quiz has attempted to put his away inside a yellow baseball cap.

      “Hmm,” Draco says after a moment, “trade your converse for Adidas and lose the hat, that afro of yours is finally at a length that you can start flaunting it,” he instructs. His roommate immediately rips the cap off and dives for his shoes in the back of his closet. Draco laughs before adding, “I like the glasses, by the way.” Quiz stands up quickly, banging his head on the hanging coat rack.

      “Thanks--ouch--I got them today. María said they suited my face shape better or something,” he replies. 

      “They do,” Draco says, walking out of the bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom, “let me fix my hair then I’ll be ready to go.” Quiz laughs and says something about Draco’s ‘precious hair’ as acknowledgement, but Draco ignores him. 

      Draco’s hair has changed since his childhood, starting to lean more towards his mother and aunt’s side of the family. Instead of his father’s flat, glossy locks, his platinum tresses have developed into an amalgam of smooth sloping waves, large bouncy ringlets, and in some places corkscrew curls. The change in his appearance had started in 5th year, and he’d lamented it. What would his father say if he found out that Draco was anything but a carbon copy of him? He’d managed to find a potion that would keep it stick straight for a few months before it needed to be reapplied, so his family didn’t find out about it until after the war when he was too depressed to bother. 

      His father had been, as expected, less than pleased to see his son with hair “almost as loathsome as Granger’s,” but his mother was thrilled. She taught him how to wash and style it and told him how she’d always thought he looked a little alien when his father dictated how it was done, saying that it made him look “far too angry and sharp for a little boy.” After some push back from his mother (Draco, you would look just lovely with it long), he settled for a haircut he quite likes. It’s longer on the top, where his looser curls are located, so that he can pile them up into a soft platinum quiff. The tighter corkscrews, mercifully located lower on his head, were then shaved off into an edgy undercut so that he would never have to worry about them and their more particular hair care needs. 

      Draco tosses it around for a few moments, adding just a touch more gel and twisting a few locks around his finger to accentuate the curl, he sighs in defeat. It doesn’t look  _ great,  _ but he supposes it’ll just get messed up tonight anyways. Just as he’s turning to grab the doorknob, Quiz knocks.

      “You pretty yet?” he asks from behind the door. Draco rolls his eyes and opens the door.

      “Please, Quiz. I’ve always been gorgeous,” he replies smartly, brushing past the larger man towards his backpack to fish out his wallet and phone. 

      “Awesome. I’ll go start up the car,” says Quiz, ignoring Draco’s sassy remark. Draco smiles and follows Quiz out their apartment door and down the hall of their dorm building. The hallway is deserted, so Draco assumes that his other classmates are in their rooms, already asleep or studying. He supposes it makes sense, it is starting to get a little late. But it's Thursday, which means no classes tomorrow for most of the student body. Perhaps they've already left to some bar or night club.

      The pair of men gallop down the stairs, not bothering to use the elevator as they're only on the third floor, and both of them somewhat enjoy the exercise. They march out the doors, and as Draco's face hits the cooling night air, he can already feel the adversity of today melting away, rapidly being replaced by excitement for the night to come. Draco only gets one night off every week, Thursday. Since there are no classes on Friday, none of his friends find it necessary to stay in and catch a good night’s rest. He would spend every second of his nights partying with his friends if he could, but his position as concertmaster in the orchestra means that he has to devote all his energies to the weekend performances and preceding rehearsals. Additionally, there's a weekly Wednesday matinee, and every night of the weekdays are spent studying. His father had agreed to pay for Draco to live far, far away only on the condition that Draco be the absolute best student in the grade. There is, of course, almost no way to measure this from all the way in Malfoy Manor, so Draco could probably easily find a way to cheat it, but a part of him still enjoys being the very best and gaining his parents’ approval. Sure, he now very much disliked his father after all the things he was forced to go through at the man's hands, but he enjoyed having someone else pay for most of his academic expenses. He enjoyed learning, and realized long ago that muggles know a great deal more about science, math, history, and even magical events (though they didn’t consider the events magical, just strange phenomenons) than the wizarding world ever did. 

      Some things, such as textbooks and extracurriculars, are not covered in his parents’ umbrella of financial assistance, and Draco enjoys the responsibility he has. He had to figure out his taxes, how to buy food, and other domestic necessities, and even has a job of his own. Apart from playing in the symphony--for which he gets a portion of the ticket sales--he works at a local tattoo parlor. Nothing special, just reception and secretary work, but he’s making money of his own. He’s striving to be able to take the wheel entirely from his parents by his Junior year, in order to finally be rid of the clutch the wizarding world still has on him and his daily life. Until then, however, he would continue to enjoy the blessings of wealthy parents. 

      As they approach the motorbike, Quiz presses a button on the key fob to unlock the ignition guards. Climbing into the driver's seat, he turns the front wheel to unlock it and presses a button on the body to start the engine. Draco walks up to the small storage door at the front of their parking spot, unlocks it with the key they keep under the rug, and grabs their helmets. He tosses the white one to Quiz and fits the black one over his head, then stretches his leg over the seat behind Quiz. The slightly taller man revs the engine, and they're off. 

      Draco loves his car. Sure, it isn't technically a car, but it's more fun to call it that on a date only to surprise the guy by revealing the sparkling red beast. It's large enough to comfortably fit the two roommates (who are both well over six feet tall), but small enough to dodge through traffic in a jam. Riding on it reminds him much of his days on the quidditch field, wind whipping across his body as he zips down the streets, the rest of the world feeling like it’s miles away. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to use it much because his entire life is mostly campus-centric, so he can get almost anywhere he wants to go by walking or sometimes--when he’s in a pinch--apparating. He avoids this as much as he can, however, in order to avoid confusion. He would hate to _obliviate_ one of his friends because his arrival to any given event was accompanied by a strange cracking noise or because he got there a little too soon for it to be possible.

      Tonight he gets to ride the asphalt seas of Los Angeles’ overcrowded freeways, and even if he isn’t at the wheel he still thoroughly enjoys the experience. With his hands secured on Quiz’s shoulders he allows himself to grin like an idiot under the heavy helmet as the lights of the city rush by him in dazzling neon trails. The November air nips at his exposed arms and knees, but he doesn’t mind. As he likes to say, the chill adds to the thrill. They arrive at the club all too soon, and the busy talkative atmosphere of the club’s entrance feels subdued and even tranquil in comparison to the roaring thrall of their ride. 

      Even still, Draco’s heart picks up once again in excitement upon seeing his group of friends standing on the pavement off to the side of the club, chatting among themselves and giggling deliriously before they’ve even had a sip of liquor. Kira’s eyes catch his, and her tanned face lights up. 

      “Draco! Quiz! Finally!” She cries, running up to them and wrapping her arms around both their necks in a back-cracking hug. The rest of the group migrates towards the trio as Kira untangles herself from Draco to give her undivided attention to Quiz. Though the man’s face is dark as a midnight sky, Draco knows his ‘blush’ face. Kira’s cheeks have also taken an endearing shade of red as she starts talking to him, and Draco hears her complimenting Quiz’s outfit. A glimmer of pride swells in his chest, then he turns his attention away from the freshly official couple. 

      “Took ya long enough,” says María, a pretty girl with hair as black and glossy as obsidian and skin the color of wet sand. “I’ve been freezing out here in this dress!”

      “It looks wonderful as always, María.” Draco says as reply, and her glossed lips pull up into a smirk of satisfaction. María’s major is fashion design, and today’s handmade party dress is short, tight, and backless, revealing the elegant curve of her spine and expertly sculpted backside that she claims took years of squatting to build up. The dress is covered in large round sequins the size of nickels that remind Draco of mermaid scales. She looks stunning. 

      The remaining two members of the party seem to be vibrating with energy. Erin and Cameron, cherry-haired twins with the Fred-and-George-mischievousness to match, each grab one person in each hand and start hauling them towards the entrance. 

      “Come  _ on,  _ guys! If I’m gonna get a desired midnight dick appointment I need some alcohol in me  _ right now! _ ” Whines Erin. Her black-and-white painted nails are digging into Draco’s arm and he winces but lets out a laugh. Ignoring him, Erin stalks determinedly to the hot, sweaty entrance and Draco can already tell that tonight’s energy will be something to remember. 

      Cameron turns and smirks as María bats his hand away from hers, revealing his signature prominent canine teeth that always seemed to set women's’ hearts (and ovaries) ablaze. His eyes, the color of dandelion stems, glow as the light from the street lamps outside gradually fade away in lieu of the dark ultraviolet lights of the club. Draco’s breath catches for a moment, in the shadowy light he almost,  _ almost  _ looks like…

      “Woohoo!!” Kira yells, grabbing Quiz’s hand and dragging him towards the center of the dance floor. Cameron and María are quick to follow, letting out excited whoops of their own, but Erin and Draco opt instead for the enticing neon lights coming from the bar to the left side of the club. 

      “Pink Bomb, please,” Draco orders, leaning over the chrome counter to the bartender, who nods and starts crafting the drink. Erin slides into the seat next to him, rolling her eyes--which are equally as light as Cameron’s, though less green and more hazel. 

      “Oh, Deedee, you’re such a  _ girl, _ ” she says, pushing her hair back behind her ear, “I mean, really? The Pink Bomb? That’s the sweetest drink on the menu--three shots of tequila, thanks.” Draco whistles lowly. 

      “You’re starting out a little ambitious, aren't you?” Erin shrugs.

      “I told you, I’m hoping to be headed home with a sexy man and a big dick tonight, and soon. I’m a better flirt when I’m wasted.” Draco snorts and takes a sip of his drink, which tastes amazing. He doesn’t care if the alcohol content is lower, he’d rather enjoy himself while drinking it. Just as he’s telling Erin this, her drinks arrive and she downs them one after another, tipping the golden liquid down her throat with incredible grace and speed. She grins after dropping the last glass onto the counter with a satisfying ‘clink,’ and her red lips are lopsided as she salutes to Draco then gradually enters the throng of people. He smiles and sighs. He’ll join them all once he’s properly drunk, and properly drunk he will be. 

::::::::

      About an hour later, Draco’s body is flush against a burly man with a thick beard and freckles running all the way up his arms and over his face. The music is loud and overpowering, the bass run so loud that he can hardly hear any melody to dance to. He instead opts to grind more insistently against the man, who growls in his ear enticingly. The man is significantly shorter than Draco--though most men are like that, with Draco towering at six foot three--but he doesn’t mind. He’s drunk and sweating and obviously turning another man on, which is more than enough to get his blood racing. 

      The man--Trevor, Travis, something beginning with a T--reaches up and roughly grabs Draco’s neck, which is slick with sweat, and pulls his head close.

      “Wanna head over to my place?” He asks seductively, and Draco pulls away, smirking.

      “Lead the way, handsome,” he says, and allows himself to be pulled through the maze of bodies and out the door. 

      Upon arrival at T’s house, the two waste no time in getting what they want, and before Draco has even closed the door T’s hands are on him, shoving him against the wall and gripping his hips tightly with his rough hands. Their lips crash together and Draco groans into it, deciding to put on a show. It’s all a blur from there, stumbling through the dark rooms until they reach what Draco can only assume to be T’s bedroom, ripping off each other’s shirts to run their hands across the planes of skin and muscle. At one point, T pulls away from attacking Draco’s neck to address his left forearm.

      “What happened here?” He asks breathlessly. Draco ducks and takes a turn nipping at T’s neck before replying,

      “Car accident, had my arm out the window,” Draco lies, still planting kisses and sucking at the sensitive skin around his collar, jaw, and earlobe. T just makes an ‘mmmh’ noise in response. 

      They make it fast, hot, and dirty, but it’s exactly what Draco needs to remedy the anxiety from this morning and afternoon. Both of the men thoroughly spent, they collapse onto the mattress, not bothering to pull the covers up over their naked bodies before they slip into unconsciousness. 

::::::::

      Draco sighs, now back at his dorm with a throbbing headache and a myriad of red marks patterned across his neck. Quiz had just laughed at him when he came to pick Draco up at a coffee shop a few blocks down from T’s house, and Draco scowled bitterly in return before amending himself with a wince. Brow furrowing just makes headaches worse. He hopes Erin is so hungover she goes into a coma.

      He has to be at the music halls to practice for tonight at 6:00, and he still has to figure out how he’s gonna cover up his hickeys, fix up his appearance, and heal his surging headache before the blaring noises of the orchestra kill him on stage in front of hundreds of audience members. He rubs his left wrist absentmindedly, remembering how easily T had believed him. How easily everyone in his life believed him. 

      The skin over the ugly black Mark is marred beyond recognition, the scars crisscrossing and overlapping so many times that you can hardly even tell they’re self inflicted. Covering the fact up hadn’t been his intention while doing so, of course, but it still had proven extremely useful in one, not worrying his friends, and two, erasing that horrible reminder of all he’d done. 

      After popping four pills of painkiller--one more than recommended, but he doesn’t think it’ll do too much damage--Draco grabs his shower kit and walks into the bathroom to take a cool, refreshing shower. Under the lukewarm water, he stares down at his thighs. To any muggles, they look smooth and unblemished. Only he can see the hatched patterns of faint white scars. Some are still pink and healing from his last time--three weeks ago. 

      He hates himself for them. They’re just another reminder of his failure and weakness. He’s pathetic. He can barely function without ripping himself up every once in a while. It’s gotten less frequent since he moved away, but the triggers are still frequent, sometimes so strong that it’s impossible for him to resist. 

      It all started a month after his humiliating hearing, standing in the middle of that dark room surrounded by the angry, hateful, grieving eyes of those in the council. His mark felt tingly, as if it was aching to leap out and cast its piercing darkness across the entire room. He’d wanted nothing more in that moment to claw it off. The guilty tingling feeling persisted. He knew it was nothing physical, just all in his head, but it still plagued him with a hungering need to  _ just erase it.  _ Finally, exactly thirty days later, he broke down with a kitchen knife and started to hack away at the dark mark he’d once have murdered to get. 

      The first cut had been experimental, only to see how much it would hurt. He was dying to be rid of it, but ever the coward he shied away from pain. He didn’t want to dive headfirst into the abyss without having an idea of what he was about to go through. The moment the blade first glided across his skin, it looked and felt like nothing had happened. There was nothing there. Then, like pretty ruby bubbles, blood started to fill the clean cut. He didn’t quite feel the sting, but if he remembered anything from the Sectumsempra he’d been struck by in sixth year he knew that it would hurt a  _ lot  _ more once some time passed. 

      Fearing that he would lose his nerve, Draco sliced again and again and again, some of the lines skewing ever so slightly up or down, creating an orderly haphazard set of cuts just above his ominous target. 

      The pain filled him suddenly with a rush. He felt his vision blur with tears as the sharp stinging sensation started picking at each area he’d cut. He tilted his head back and groaned with relief. The tickling, prickly plague of guilt had momentarily subsided. He felt like some valve inside his brain that had been stopped shut had finally been opened, and the floods of relief and clarity came surging through him like an icy wildfire. 

      From there began the daily--sometimes hourly--ritual of healing his mental and emotional pain with physical torture. He didn’t consider it torture, however, but rather a blessing that he’d discovered. Soon he managed to hone his skills enough that he could use a mild  _ diffindo  _ instead of the kitchen knife. He used the Mark as an excuse to hide it from his mother, claiming that he kept his left forearm bandaged up because he didn’t want to see it. She was heartbreakingly understanding, and never once questioned it.

      By the time he finished his year of house arrest, he had been trying for a few months to stop. The Mark was long gone, riddled by scars, and he didn’t want to give it any more attention. Voldemort didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to have such a dangerous hold on Draco’s life, even if Draco probably deserved the pain. Instead he switched to his thighs, which are just as easy to cover up. It never got warm enough in the Manor to wear shorts, anyways. 

      He also stopped wearing the bandages when he left, feeling like the Mark looked enough like one big patch of scar tissue rather than thousands of little lines all strung together. Becoming brave enough to wear it proudly--even if it had disappeared long ago beneath the evidence of his anguish--had been a long journey. He’s getting close to being able to stop with the ones on his thighs, he thinks. Draco hopes desperately that by the end of this year or the next he’ll be fully clean.

      Only witches and wizards can see the ones on his thighs since he implemented a glamour spell of his own invention. It acts somewhat like the concealment charms placed over the Leaky Cauldron: causing Muggles’ eyes to skirt right over the cuts as if they aren't there. It had been a leap of faith, casting it then allowing Quiz to be his first test subject. His heart felt like it would jump out of his chest, lying in bed in only boxers and a white tee shirt. Finally he mustered up the courage to throw the covers off and sling his legs over the side of the bed. The noise had disrupted Quiz from his slumber, and he slowly opened his eyes.

      “Morning, roommate,” the man had groaned, then followed suit, throwing his own legs off the bed in a far less graceful stumble. Draco made sure to dress slowly, making sure he gave Quiz every possible opportunity to see the marks on his thighs, but the man had never batted an eye. 

      Every day since then has felt a thousand times lighter, knowing that he would never have to explain himself to anyone. He doesn’t want help, he’s always had someone holding his hand and it’s always gone wrong. This trial is   _ his  _ to take care of, and he’s going to do it  _ right. _

      Besides, citizens of the wizarding world he might have the misfortune of encountering wouldn’t care. He’s a death eater. The wizarding world wouldn’t bat an eyelash if he was in pain. 

      Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Draco turns the knob on the shower head, and the silence following the rhythmic thrumming of water against his skin is deafening. His shallow breaths are the only noise, and he shuts his eyes tight, hoping to calm himself down. He shouldn’t dwell on thoughts of the past, they only make it worse.

      He dries himself quickly then stumbles back into the bedroom to finish up a psychology report before lunch. He busies his mind with the clicking sounds of his laptop’s keys (honestly, quills and inkwells on parchment are so inefficient, he doesn’t know how he’d survived without muggle technology), and allows himself to be swept away in the benign drudgery of daily life. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, if you just finished this chapter and are feeling sort of iffy inside (even just a little bit!) here are the numbers you can call!  
> National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> 24-hour Self Injury Foundation hotline: 1-800-334-HELP  
> US Crisis Text Line: text "CONNECT" to 741741  
> I won't put these warnings up any more to keep the story flowing, so STOP READING HERE if you were triggered AT ALL, or I won't be able to guarantee your safety (which is my top priority)!!


	3. Face the Music

     Harry glances down at the map Aubry scrawled onto his right hand, squinting at the blocky handwriting to make sure he’s found the right place. She couldn’t have just texted him the address or something? She  _ had  _ to take the roundabout artistic way to show him to the music halls? He sighs and looks around him as night starts to engulf the campus, the setting sun being taken over by the eerie orange glow of the street lamps. The black ballpoint pen ink was already hard enough to see against his dark skin, and he’s about to turn around and give up when he catches the faint sound of a crowd joining together, down a path to his left. 

     He follows the noise as it grows louder and louder, weaving between hedges and elegant bronze statues of various muggle musicians. By the time he finds the place the noise has all but disappeared as everyone most likely have already filed in to take a seat.  _ So much for classical music not being popular anymore,  _ Harry thinks unhappily as his stomach flips around and his hopes of a quiet evening are dashed. 

     Still, he can’t help stumbling as his breath comes out of him in a  _ whoosh  _ upon seeing the music hall. Gigantic pillars of sparkling white stone are aligned in an arching formation at the entrance, with a large gap in the middle revealing geometric glass doors larger than two mountain trolls stacked on top of each other. An awed grin quirks the corners of his lips up, and he moves to step inside the intimidating doors.

     If the strangely-colored domed ceiling looked intimidating from the outside, it’s overwhelming on the inside. Harry feels almost dizzy as he hands his ticket to the chauffeur at the entrance, and the elderly woman nods with a little smile on her face at his dumbstruck expression, handing him a pamphlet of paper. He has to tear his eyes away in order to walk properly to his seat, fearing that he might trip and float into the spiraling stained glass, losing himself in the intricate multi colored designs. 

     He flips through the little pamphlet the chauffeur had given him, but it’s just full of ads for future performances and concerts in the hall, so he chucks it under his chair upon reaching it. His seat is mercifully located close to the aisle, allowing for a quick escape if the music turns out to be too much. He feels like a total coward, almost ashamed of the sheer relief he feels after this discovery. Harry, a Gryffindor, shouldn’t be so ecstatic at finding an easy way to tuck tail and run from a scary situation. There are more people in here than he would have guessed, the domed room’s vastness seems only to serve the purpose of seating a multitude of people rather than provide acoustical benefits. Harry’s heart rate quickens. Perhaps this was a bad idea. He shuts his eyes and tries to take calming breaths. He focuses on one thing around him—the smells—as a distraction method that Hermione had suggested, and starts picking them apart. Old velvet, lacquered wood, and the faint aroma of something like pine sap. He takes another breath--yes, it’s definitely pine sap. Why do they have  _ that  _ in here? 

     So focused on the phenomenon of the sap scent, he almost doesn’t notice it when the lights start to dim on the audience and brighten on the stage. He opens his eyes blearily and squints at the percussionists setting up. Whatever calm he’d gleaned from the breathing exercise is immediately swept away, replaced by sweating palms and a dry mouth. 

     The drums are nothing if not expansive, the creamy stretched paper reflects the floodlights like a beacon. The metal rims are positively sparkling, smooth and silver as unicorn blood. The drums sit atop large bowl-shaped bases, and there are five of them situated around one percussionist, whose face is too overwhelmed by the lights to make out. He and the other percussionists hold very large, heavy looking mallets in their hands. Some are smaller than the others, with different materials at their heads. They plunk across the xylophones and bells pleasantly as a warm up, Harry assumes, and he supposes the noise isn’t really  _ that  _ bad, but they haven’t gotten to the big, round ones yet. If their size is anything to go by, they’ll scream at the slightest of taps. Harry really hopes they aren't used for this performance. 

_ No, Harry, you coward,  _ he chides himself angrily. Classical music is  _ beautiful  _ and  _ soothing  _ and  _ boring  _ according to some people, not big and scary. Voldemort was big and scary, and Harry managed to beat him! What’s a little bit of fucking  _ music  _ got against the most powerful dark wizard in the world? 

     A short woman with long, frizzy black hair steps up to the raised platform in front of the musicians, who all sit at attention with their bows propped above one knee and their instruments atop the other. Harry smirks just a bit, picturing an army of musicians saluting before the tiny conductor. She raises a thin white wand, and Harry blinks in surprise. Why would a muggle have a wand? And why is it so small? 

     Upon lifting the wand, the orchestra lifts their instruments to their chins, while the players with large, bulky versions of the violins (cellos, Harry thinks belatedly. Those are cellos) simply sit up straighter. They move in perfect, practiced unison, and once again Harry is reminded of an army, waiting for orders. 

     The woman with the ivory wand waves the tip of it minutely in a tiny triangle shape, then takes an audible breath as she raises her hands in a sweeping motion and begins casting spells. Well, it looks like she’s casting spells, she swirls the wand through the air in practiced shapes, Harry recognizes the triangular way it glides across the space in front of her to be  _ oppugno,  _ but he sees no flocks of tiny birds darting from the tip. 

     Thoroughly perplexed, Harry sits forward in his chair, realizing with a jolt that the orchestra has started playing. Their bows sweep across the strings in quick, urgent movements, but the sound is slow and swelling. It sounds like a lullaby, and Harry notes that the dozens of violins seem to be split into three different sections, each one’s bows making different movements as to layer the sound with harmonies. His eyes flit to the percussionists, but they stand quietly off to the side, their mallets unmoving. Are they not a part of the orchestra? Maybe they really  _ won’t  _ play this time! Heart swelling with relief, he leans back in his chair and enjoys the song. 

     It truly is gorgeous, each section of instruments’ parts overlapping in a magnificent tapestry. The sounds rise from soulful quietness to heartbreaking roars, their transitions smooth enough that isn’t jarring. While Harry’s heartbeat picks up slightly each time they get too loud, they always quiet back down, the music leaving him dumbstruck. The piece carries a feeling of wonderment and longing that settles into his soul like sugar melting on his tongue. 

     Pictures already swelling in his head, Harry hurriedly rips his attention away from the woman with the wand and pulls a pen and his sketchbook from his bag, quietly jotting down ideas for his project. He’s got a couple good ones by the time the piece is coming to a close, and Harry feels a little pang of sadness that he didn’t get to enjoy the fullness of the piece for its entirety. 

     Doing his best to resist jumping up and whooping loudly as the woman lowers her not-wand and the orchestra fades away, Harry claps politely, mirroring the rest of the audience. He’s surprised but pleased to find his cheeks damp with tears and his heart stuttering with emotion. He’ll have to find out the name of that piece, maybe he could manage to download it? That would be an incredible feat—listening to music for  _ enjoyment?  _ Harry never thought it would happen, but here he is wishing for that very thing.

     The instrumentalists flip through their music in a flurry, the sounds of paper shuffling and stands creaking as they adjust for the next piece replacing the echo of applause. Harry’s eyes dart to the front row as one musician rises from his chair to a stand to the right of the woman on the platform. He places a handful of papers onto the stand, pulling it up to his eye level, then nods to the woman with the wand. She nods back and mutters to the rest of the orchestra and mutters something while waving the wand in tiny motions once again, and Harry notes a couple of the members of the orchestra tapping along with it onto their instruments. 

     Oh. So she  _ isn’t  _ casting spells, she’s setting the… tempo? Harry shakes his head slightly. He doesn’t understand musical terminology, it’s all too Italian. Curiosity sated, he turns his attention back to the fairly tall man standing with his instrument poised at his shoulder. Harry’s bisexual heart flutters a bit at the simply  _ magnificent  _ shape of his arms, he, unlike the rest of the orchestra, has shed his black jacket in favor of the white dress shirt underneath. The sleeves are— _ god— _ rolled up to his elbows, revealing muscular forearms that have Harry weak at the knees. His dress pants are tight around his gorgeous legs, revealing a magnificent ass that curves up to his poised, postured spine. He rolls his broad shoulders slightly, loosening them, and Harry  _ swears  _ he can see the muscles in his chest and back rolling beneath the white fabric. 

     His face is difficult to see underneath the bright lights—Harry curses them—but he can make out sharp, angular cheekbones and a killer jawline. He has long, delicate, deft fingers that skirt playfully across his instrument’s strings, probably practicing before going into the actual piece. He has curly platinum hair that falls over his forehead in soft waves, which makes him look, well, _ angelic.  _ His pale skin sparkles under the lights, and Harry is reminded of a silly romance movie that Hermione, Molly, and Ginny had forced him to watch (and secretly enjoyed) about a vampire who couldn't go out into the sun because his skin looked like it was made of diamonds.

     The gorgeous musician inhales, his chest puffing slowly as he raises the instrument to his chin, his bow hovering above the strings, and if Harry thought he couldn’t get any more handsome he realizes quickly that he was mistaken. The way he holds his instrument causes his spine to curve deliciously, and it stretches the fabric around his shoulders to reveal powerful biceps. Harry’s mouth goes dry.

     The woman at the front conducts the tempo in small movements one more time, and the man raises his arms in preparation for the first note, and then all at once he’s filling the air with music. The beautiful man plays a solo apart from the rest of the orchestra, which is playing simple, elongated notes that create chords accompanying the man’s quick, elegant ones.

     The music is urgent and rather hurried at first, lilting across the audience members in a swift, measured back-and-forth, and Harry can feel a story unfolding to it. He brings his pen down to the paper again, new ideas circulating and rising in his brain like bubbles in a bath. The way the man leans into his instrument, body swaying with each powerful stroke of bow does wonders to Harry’s flitting pulse, especially as his notes grow more hurried. His powerful arms sweep through the air in a practiced dance and the orchestra’s simple yet meaningful accompaniment coats the piece, supporting the soloist’s movements like waves lapping onto a sandy shore, like a sunrise casting rich golden beams across a cool cityscape. 

_ Another day, another dime _

_ Another dollar, another crime _

     Harry sits bolt upright as the words from a few mornings ago spring to the forefront of his thoughts. He’d all but forgotten them, but now… 

     With renewed vigor, he begins sketching. Of  _ course,  _ it’s perfect! The urgent, decisive melancholy of this piece fits like a puzzle piece into that stupid little poem his unconscious mind had invented, and if he combines it with the big city imagery he’d conjured while listening… 

     As the soloist’s movements become more quick and jumpy Harry’s pen glides across the paper, the music and his art working in tandem until the notes fade out. Harry releases a breath, beaming down at his paper, and closes the pen with a satisfying  _ click  _ while the audience roars. 

     Harry desperately wants to stay for the final piece, maybe see if he can’t catch the striking soloist’s name, but his hands are itching for some paint and a canvas, and he knows that if he doesn’t act quickly he’ll forget the emotion he needed to capture for the assignment. He shoves his things awkwardly into his bag and shuffles reluctantly from the hall just as the third piece begins. 

     Maybe it was a good thing that he chose to leave when he did, Harry thinks as the piece starts with anxious-sounding, high-pitched noises that clunk together in metallic dysfunction. He’s closing the door just as loud banging on what he only assumes to be the large drums begins, causing him to flinch and his palms to sweat. The music is mercifully muffled once he gets out to the lobby. 

     “Leaving so soon? The most interesting piece was just starting, it’s supposed to sound like cogs in a machine, modeled after the steel industry from the 1920’s Soviet era. I think it’s quite revolutionary, though a little avant garde,” the woman who had taken his ticket says as Harry brushes past her. He swallows dryly and tries for a smile.

     “Yeah, sorry. I just remembered I have an assignment I need to finish, so—” he stops halfway through opening the large glass doors, remembering that he’d wanted to download the first piece (probably the second, as well, if he wanted to remember all its intricacies). “Wait, do you know the names of the first two pieces?” he asks. The elderly woman smiles, her thin lips covered in ruby lipstick. She has sharp yet kind looking eyes, reminding Harry briefly of Professor McGonagall. 

     “Yes, should I write it down for you? I know the program can be a little difficult to navigate,” she says, and Harry nods in a way that he hopes looks understanding. Program? He doesn’t recall getting a program. Maybe he missed it on the way in. The woman pulls a post-it from under the ticket desk and scrawls the names and composers of each piece, and Harry pockets it with a grateful smile.

     “Thanks so much, ma’am. Have a nice night!” he calls on his way out, and the woman smiles back at him with a little wave.

     Already jittery with nerves after what little he heard of the third piece and shaky with excitement and renewed vigor for his assignment, Harry nearly sprints back to his apartment, grateful that his directional skills are good enough that he no longer needs the unhelpful map over his hand. 

     Though night time is quickly looming over him, Harry supposes that since it’s the weekend some lack of sleep wouldn’t hurt, and he gets to work sketching the piece’s final design and pulling a canvas from his collection in his closet. He opens his paints, taking a moment to enjoy the familiar smells and sounds of his work, before losing himself in the colors. 

     Night seeps into day like tea leaves seeping into hot water, and before Harry knows it he’s standing before a finished piece that he’s shockingly proud of. Having the soloist’s music playing through his phone’s speakers on repeat, Harry had used color to his advantage in reflecting the mood he desired. 

     The canvas displayed a cityscape from the perspective of a fallen dime on the concrete ground. The scene was awash with the orange hues of sunrise dripping over the tall, shadowy buildings and the feet of busy passerby’s. He painted the dirty hand of a child, indicating the low monetary standing of a poor child hustler, in the foreground, picking up the dime. He made sure to emphasize the difference between the sparkling silver coin and the skinny, dirt-covered hands to reflect the difference between wealth and poverty. In the midground he depicted several other poor children slyly pickpocketing wallets and watches from rich, corrupted citizens that passed on either side of the dime, their faces shadowed to (hopefully) emphasize the moral corruption of their personalities. He wanted the message to show that while the children were committing crime, the rich adults were the ones who lived more morally evil lives. The two demographics desired the same thing—money—but for two completely different reasons. 

     Harry thought proudly that the languid, unsettling phrases of the music matched well with the richer folk in his painting, while the hurried, more upbeat sounds fit the children stealing for their livelihood. The accompanying orchestra made up the rising sun, indicating that each new day represented a new opportunity for the corrupt to grow more corrupted, and the poor to do more of what they could to survive. 

     The piece needed more refining still, but Harry felt extremely satisfied with the work he’d completed in just one night. He hadn’t needed to bullshit any of it, and he’d conquered his fear of the orchestra hall.

     He’d also seen what was probably the most handsome person imaginable, just the thought of the soloist made Harry blush. He sighed and put down his paintbrush, not bothering to change into more comfortable clothes before collapsing on his bed and passing out, and for the first time in weeks it isn’t because he’s blackout drunk. 

     Harry is content.

     Until the nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so so sorry it took so long to update, and I'm sorry that it's so short! The plot will start picking up soon, I just had to get this little bit out of the way and I didn't want to tag it on the beginning of the next chapter, because it might be a little bit long.  
> Thanks for sticking around!  
> -Songs in this chapter-  
> First piece: Lullaby by William Hofeldt  
> Second piece: Praeludium and Allegro by Fritz Kreisler  
> Third piece: Op.19 The Iron Foundry by Alexander Mosolov


	4. Howling to the Dark

The mail system in the muggle world is certainly something Draco was not prepared for. It is rather fast, considering how comparably slow most muggle things are to the wizarding way. He’d tried to look up the process before, but it seemed extremely complicated and probably somewhat magical, considering how shrouded in mystery it is to the public. Still, a truck could cart gigantic packages across the country in record time and was about as accurate as owl mail had been.

However, with the invention of technology, the use of physical mail is gradually becoming more archaic. Quiz calls it ‘snail-mail,’ and it took Draco an embarrassingly long time afterwards to realize that the post is not, in fact, being transported via snail. 

On his third day at muggle university, Quiz had pressed a little silver key into Draco’s palm and said, “Draco, would you mind picking up the snail mail? I need to get going and I haven’t checked since Monday.” Then he’d skidded out the door with a quick thank you, and Draco was left standing dumbstruck, absentmindedly running his fingers over the grooves of the key.

_ Pick up the mail? Is it left on the floor somewhere?  _ Draco had wondered as he ventured down the elevator to the lobby in order to inquire of the receptionist where he might find the mail to be picked up. The elevator’s massive steel doors slid open with a pleasant  _ ding,  _ and Draco had smiled contentedly at how much nicer they were than those bronze death traps at the ministry. He walked carefully and smoothly across the warm lobby, navigating between a few potted plants and smooth leather chairs to the front desk. 

The desk’s marble was cool against his forearms as he leaned over and tapped gently on the top of the computer that the receptionist had been leaning over. She looked up in surprise, her amber eyes framed by thick black glasses. Her hair was dark brown and smooth, pulled into a tight ponytail apart from her glossy bangs, which framed her eyebrows and emphasized the smoothness of her olive-toned face. She wore a magenta blouse and a slightly lighter shade of lipstick, which Draco noted, impressed, was a very good color for her eyes and hair. 

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t see you there. How can I help?” she asked, and Draco tried for a warm smile to match hers. He wasn’t used to smiling. 

“Where might I go to pick up mail?” he asked, primitive images of a cold room filled to bursting with the yellowed envelopes of every resident of his dorm hall filling his head. He tried not to wince. The receptionist’s smile softened and she stood up, gathering a few papers from off her lap and placing them neatly to the left of her computer.

“Ah, you must’ve missed the tour. Here, I can show you. Do you have your key?” Draco nodded and held it up. Shouldn’t she have a key to the room also? She  _ was  _ the receptionist after all. “Oh, good. Come on, the mailboxes are right this way.”

_ Boxes?  _ At least that was better than just one pile on the floor, Draco mused, following quietly behind the receptionist’s footsteps, her glossy black wedges making muffled sounds against the tan carpet of the lobby. She pushed the glass doors leading to the front open and made a sharp right, leaving Draco even more perplexed as the hot air assaulted him. He supposed it made sense that the Mail Box Room was outside, if all their mail was in the same place it would be easier for owls to drop and run. Still, the sweat already prickling at his forehead was annoying. He was still acclimating to the heat after the Manor’s constant cloudy days. 

The receptionist turned and led him over to a small kiosk that Draco had noticed walking in on the first day but hadn’t thought much of it. The metal roof offered little in light of protection from the heat, and underneath it was a large metal box, separated into smaller, thinner boxes, each with a silver keyhole on one side and a hinge on the other. 

“What apartment number are you?” the receptionist asked, regarding Draco’s curious expression.

“704,” Draco answered after a moment of hesitation. He did not see any mail.

“Okay, so the seventh floor block is right here,” she said, indicating a row of in the thin boxes that had a large engraven ‘7’ over them, “and you’re 704, so your box is right…” The receptionist’s voice was drawn out at the last word as her french tipped nails slid down the row of boxes until they tapped at the fourth one down, labeled ‘04.’ “There you are,” she said brightly.

“Oh, thank you,” Draco responded awkwardly, still not knowing exactly what was going on. How the hell did the owls get the letters into these little boxes? Did they all have keys as well?

Draco understood that the next step would be to stick the silver key into the keyhole on the 04 box, so he did, turning it. The door opened easily, creaking slightly at the hinges. Crisp white letters and what looked to be a newspaper made entirely of colorful, unmoving muggle adverts tumbled onto the concrete at his feet, and the receptionist laughed. It was a warm sound, and Draco shot back a little chuckle that thankfully didn’t sound too forced. 

“I’ll leave you to it, I’m expecting a call in about five minutes. Good luck!” she called over her shoulder, walking back to the sanctity of the air conditioned lobby. 

“How do they get it in…?” he wondered aloud after gathering all the mail back into his arms. Draco looked closer at the strange Mail Box, poking at the door for any grooves that an owl might be able to find its way around. A barking laugh sounded from behind him, and Draco straightened and whirled around, spilling a few pages of the advertisement newspaper. 

Standing behind him, holding a key similar to Draco’s, was a boy with deep red hair—darker and less garishly orange than the Weasley’s, but just as striking in its originality. He had pale skin that cast sharp shadows over his sturdy cheekbones and jawline, with thick eyebrows that lay low over his pale green eyes, making him look somewhat predatory. Through his smile, Draco could make out straight white teeth and prominent canines and  _ fuck  _ he’s really gay.

“The mailman has a key to all of this,” the boy says, walking up to the fourth floor block and unlocking the box labeled ‘06.’ “He just pops his master key up here,” the boy indicates a keyhole at the very top of his row of boxes, “and it opens all of them up so he can just slide the mail in at once and boom,” he pulls a handful of envelopes from his own box and closes it shut, locking it, “that’s how.”

“Mailman?” Draco repeats. The boy leans against the boxes, his muscular arms bared by a loose grey and orange striped bro tank that reveals a large strip of his sculpted torso. 

“Yeah, like, y’know, the dude who delivers all the mail. Ever heard of it?” the boy says sarcastically, entirely unaware of exactly how oblivious Draco is. After a long silence, filled by Draco pleading with his eyes for the boy to leave before he embarrases himself, his red brows rise slightly and he lets out a whoosh of air. “Do you actually not know?” he asked. Draco sighed and shook his head.

That was the day he’d met Cameron. He managed to pull an excuse out of his ass about being from a foreign boarding school that didn’t get mail the same way—which is mostly true. He’s grateful for that day; as much as a sheltered idiot it had made him appear, it had also been the gateway to meeting all of his current amazing friends. 

He’s gotten used to the muggle mail system, as complex under the hood it may be, and has all but forgotten the days of owls flying through the sky at all times. Which is why he sits staring, shocked and almost unsure of what to do when his mother’s regal snowy owl, Dame, appears pecking at his dorm window one Saturday morning.

Suddenly flying into action, he knocks his desk chair over in his rush to stand, sprinting to the window and throwing the latch open. He struggles with the screen—a bug-proof muggle invention that he adores—popping it out of the frame and allowing Dame to glide into the room. She lands on his desk, regarding him coldly. 

“Dame?” Draco asks carefully, approaching her and mentally thanking Merlin, Salazar, even bloody Dumbledore for the fact that Quiz is absent, going grocery shopping. The owl makes a low noise, drops an envelope on top of his laptop, then turns away from him in search of the owl treats Draco used to keep on his desk back at the Manor.

“Uh, sorry, I don’t have any food for you, there aren't any owls here in LA,” he apologizes, still shaken by the fact that there is an  _ owl  _ in his  _ dorm,  _ and it’s his  _ mother’s.  _ What on Earth has he done to warrant a letter? They’ve never written before, the only times his parents grace him with their presence being an annual visit back to the Manor for Christmas for minimal obligatory celebration and the exchanging of his tuition money.

Dame doesn’t seem to understand, so Draco sighs and turns towards the letter. He’s obviously expected to read it and give the snowy owl his reply, so he wants to get it over with before Quiz returns. Upon seeing the envelope lying neatly atop his laptop, his blood runs cold.

How he’d managed to not see the scarlet color before, Draco doesn’t know.  _ A howler.  _ He must be in deep shit for his parents to stoop to send a  _ howler.  _ No Malfoy in history has ever sent or received one, being far too distinguished to do something warranting the angry red letter. 

With shaking hands, he splits the paper, watching as the envelope floats into the air gently, the letter’s ‘lips’ trembling as if it’s crying. It looks more distressed than angry, leaving Draco even more confused than before, if possible. 

“Draco,” says his mother’s voice from the lips of the howler, and it’s like his lungs shatter. The ever regal and put together Narcissa Malfoy sounds like a wreck. Her voice is small and shaking, no matter how hard she must be trying to hold it together. Draco unconsciously claps a hand over his lips, eyes wide with shock as the howler—his mother—continues.

“Draco,” she repeats after a breath, “I ap-p-pologize for the howler,” she cuts off with a gasp that sounds an awful lot like a sob, “I understand how c-confused you might be feeling after receiving s-s-s-such a ghastly version of standard c-communication.” Draco nods as if she’s in the room with him, wanting nothing more than to reach through the howler and hold her thin hands. 

“I assure you, I would have t-taken the more c-conventional route of writing if I had the o-option, but I’m afraid that my hands… m-m-my h-hands are… they… I c-c-can’t h-hold a quill be-because my h-h-h-hands—” she cuts off with a wail, breaths coming in shallow gasps and Draco realizes with a start that she’s descending into a panic attack. He stands anxiously, wringing his hands knowing that even if he were there right now, he wouldn’t be able to help her, the letter long ago spoken and sent away. Instead he’s forced to sit through his mother, the only person who had ever been on his side with no ulterior motive, cry like she has never cried before.

Suddenly she breaks free from her sobbing with a desperate gasp for air before stuttering out a mangled sentence that turns every inch of Draco’s body to ice. He makes a choking noise and drops to his knees in shock, hands flying over his mouth.

Her words had been garbled by gasps and sobs, but Draco understands it all the same.

“Your father has been killed by Voldemort.”

: : : : : : :

Harry wakes with a start, the memory of the dream already fading but the effects lingering all the same. His skin itches like he’s being watched and the darkness of his bedroom feels suffocating. Gasping out for air, his hands grope across the bedside table before landing on his lamp. He turns the switch, gratefully gulping down air as the warm yellow light banishes any traces of darkness. He focuses his efforts on taking deep, calming breaths, already far too familiar with the sensation of waking from a nightmare unable to breathe. 

Once calmed enough that he can breathe without his throat stuttering, Harry groans and drops his head back down onto his pillow, glancing reproachfully at his alarm clock. 1:33, so if he got to bed around 5:52 that was a good seven hours (give or take a few minutes). He supposes this is as good an indication as any to get up and start his day. 

Harry doesn’t have anything planned until game night with the students of 3F tomorrow, so he decides to spend the rest of the day finishing his painting then getting to bed  _ early  _ in order to reset his sleeping schedule to some semblance of normalcy. 

A quick trip to the caf é and a couple paint smudges later, he steps back from the completed canvas, satisfied.  _ There.  _ Now he doesn’t have to worry about it until it’s time to turn it in. He shoves the canvas back into his closet with his easel, pouring his paint cups in the sink and leaving the brushes to be taken care of in the morning.

Standing with his hands gripping the white tile in front of the sink, Harry gazes out the window, not really seeing past his reflection against the glass. He looks tired, sunken under the orphan light hanging from the stucco ceiling. His hair is more crumpled than usual and he has a swipe of orange paint running from his forehead up into the black locks, probably from when he pushed it out of his face while painting. 

He sighs and drums his fingers against the sink’s rim, trying to conjure back the images of this morning’s nightmare. Flashes of green and red, a loud wailing—probably the cry of one of his classmates as the fell to the ground, never to rise again—and the sinister chuckle of Voldemort himself. All he ever remembers is the sensory details, never any plot for him to pick apart and analyze. It’s like his brain doesn’t want him to be able to get over them.

Which is why he turned to drinking. He and Ron found, early on, that if they managed to knock themselves out, the dreams had a harder time coming to the surface. At first they’d tried taking dreamless sleep, but he’d always woken up after feeling like he hadn’t actually slept, like the time had been robbed of him. He immediately decided that if it was going to have to be a nightly ritual, he would rather suffer through the dreams then ever take the potion again. Ron, after similar results, dropped it as well in favor of alcohol, urging Harry to try it out.

Hermione had been less than pleased by his and Ron’s newfound coping mechanism, and after just a couple months had gotten Ron completely clean of the habit. However, since he didn’t live with her, Harry was much harder to convince. He moved away before she could ever completely break him free, and it’s only gotten worse with their limited communication. ( _ We can’t just send an owl, Harry! You’re in Los Angeles, not wizarding London! _ )

After a moment, Harry guiltily decides he should just try to go to sleep without it. Damn Hermione, even the thought of her is enough to scold him into submission. He resigns himself to a fitful yet sober sleep, praying that whatever god up there that exists can see that he’s already had a nightmare today, he  _ really  _ doesn’t need another. 

Of course, when has God ever listened to what he wants?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, apologies for the short chapter. The real plot is starting up soon, I promise.  
> Thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos, y'all are amazing for sticking around with my sporadic updates. I love you a lot.


	5. Broken Brick, Polished Stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!! (thank you for the kick in the pants to update, SpikedTequila!!)  
> my updates will be a little infrequent, I'm trying to improve my scheduling skills, but it's a slow road. Also, school starts in two days, so it'll be a bit harder. Thank you everyone for your kind words, comments remind me that there are people still reading this stuff, and therefore incentivize me to work harder!! love you guys lots!

The nightmares, as always, are persistent. And as always, Harry guiltily caves, giving in to the allure of a quick and easy knockout that tequila offers. As always his friends are nothing but sympathetic, which perhaps makes him feel even worse about it. Harry knows that he should tell them about his past, and he knows that they’ll understand, but something always stops him before he can try.

Take today, for example. They’d gone out for coffee—with the exception of Arch, who had basketball practice _again_ —and a quick game or two of bowling before Harry had to return to the music halls for the second performance he would be attending. His project is already as finished as it’ll get, but he’s hopeful that tonight he’ll find out the name of the gorgeous solist, maybe talk to him and invite him out for a drink?

The bowling alley is filled to the brim. Harry has been bowling with his friends before, but never on a Friday evening when it’s swarming with people, the lanes as packed as a deck of cards. The make their way up to the front desk which is just barely tall enough that only Lucy’s shoulders and up are visible from the other side. They pay for their shoes then move to the only available lane—11.

“Yes!” squeals Lucy as her golden ball—a specially weighted one made for children that she’d had to go ask specific permission for at the front desk—barely grazes the furthermost right pin, tipping it over before dropping into the cavity behind them. “I beat my high score!” she shouts excitedly, high-fiving Damian with gusto. Harry steals a glance at the scoreboard projected onto a TV above their heads.

“Lucy… you have 37 points,” Harry says, gesturing towards the screen. The short girl whirls around to face him, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

“I know! My high score was 36!” she giggles, doing a little victory dance before sitting down.

“Lucy, I know you said you were bad at bowling, but I didn’t know you were _abysmal_ at bowling!” HK says incredulously as he passes her, lifting his dark red ball from the cart. “I mean, who the fuck is bad at _bowling?!_ It’s the easiest sport in the world!” he says over his shoulder, tossing the ball carelessly onto the aisle without looking. It easily strikes the center of the pins, knocking over all but one. HK curses under his breath, walking back over to the group to wait for his ball to return from the conveyor.

“I’ve tried to teach her, but she always ends up swerving right,” Aubry says from Harry’s left, stretching her arm out to comfort the pouting Lucy that plops down beside redhead.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” moans Lucy, folding her arms pointedly over her chest, “I’ve tried everything, even just aiming to the left of the aisle in hopes that the ball rolls to the center from there, but I’m always too aggressive and it jumps into the right gutter anyways.”

HK falls the pin he left from his first go with perfect precision before turning back to her. “Maybe it’s that little baby ball you have, maybe try using a _normal person_ ball instead? Y’know, the kind that _normal people_ use,” he says snarkily. Lucy sticks her tongue out at him.

“Fine! Next time it’s my turn I’ll use that satanic billion-pound dumbbell you always grab.”

HK smiles tauntingly. “Sounds great!”

Damian turns away from the aisle after throwing his own bright orange ball. “Stop bickering, you two. Bowling isn’t an exact science, it’s easy to make mistakes—”

“Says you!” shouts Lucy, throwing her hands exaggeratedly towards the ball Damian just threw as it collides with the pins in a devastating strike. HK smirks, ignoring the glare Damian shoots his way.

“I’m tellin’ you, it’s that little ball,” he says and Aubry sighs, rising to her feet.

“Hey, at least you don’t have to go immediately after golden boy here, every shot I take looks like, _super_ lackluster in comparison,” she says, tucking a loose hair that has fallen from her messy bun behind her ear. She falls all but two of the pins in her first try, leaving only one still standing after her second. Harry grins, stepping up to the cart to retrieve his own ball.

“Lucy, if it’s any consolation, the first time Arch took me bowling, I thought you were _supposed_ to avoid the pins because of his horrible aim. It took a couple games of watching other people cheering after getting strikes for me to finally understand.” Harry lifts his ball with a little smile, adjusting his glasses before taking aim.

His seeker’s reflexes are surprisingly helpful during bowling, helping him zero in on a target that’s far away. As good as he might be, he’ll never beat Damian, who has gotten a perfect 300 on more than one occasion of group bowling. Still, Harry manages to get a strike, leaving Lucy groaning sadly behind him.

“Do you want me to help you?” Aubry asks as Lucy stands, dejected.

“Yes please,” she moans before going to lift HK’s ball with a heavy glare in his direction. It nearly slips from her tiny fingers. “Agh! This is so heavy, HK, what the fuck?!” she shouts, hefting it up to her chest for support. Aubry quickly rises to her feet and wraps her muscular arms around Lucy’s small body to help.

HK leans over to Harry and Damian, who are sitting across from each other at the ends of the lane’s built-in chairs. “D’you think it’ll work?” he asks, and Harry tilts his head, puzzled.

“His scheme to get Lucy and Aubry to finally admit their feelings for each other,” Damian says, rolling his eyes. Harry’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“Wait, scheme? Feelings? Why don’t I know about any of this?” he asks, and HK shakes his head.

“Because you’re an oblivious idiot. They’ve _obviously_ been making eyes at each other for like, _months._ ” Damian swats at HK’s knee good-naturedly.

“Hey, be nice,” he says before his scowl morphs into a wicked grin, “besides, it’s been more like _years._ They’ve been hardcore crushing on each other basically since Lucy tripped on her way to shake Aubry’s hand.”

“Oh,” Harry says lamely. And here he thought that discovering HK and Damian’s gay crushes on each other was a big revelation. Turns out his friend group is becoming more and more of a TV drama than he’d ever thought. “Well, what was your scheme, then?”

“Just watch,” HK says, gesturing towards the two girls at the front of the bowling lane. Aubry’s bent over Lucy, her arms wrapped around her body to guide her arms in the right direction while helping to support the obviously-too-heavy-for-little-Lucy ball. She’s closer than strictly necessary, but Lucy doesn’t seem to be shying away from the touch—in fact, if Harry squints, he can see the smaller girl leaning into Aubry’s chest.

“Ugh, what I wouldn’t do to see their faces right now,” Damian sighs dreamily, leaning his chin onto his hands with a little smile. At this, HK’s eyes snap away from the two girls, instead choosing to glue to Damian’s face. Harry suddenly feels extremely smug—and a little intrusive—at seeing four of his friends quickly dissolving into their stupid pining. It makes his heart give a little tug as he imagines doing the exact thing towards the hot soloist tonight.

Suddenly Aubry leans down and whispers something into Lucy’s ear, causing her to visibly shiver. Her face turns towards the taller girl then, and both seem to notice their close proximity. Neither decides to do anything about it. From here, Harry can barely see the left half of Lucy’s face and the right corner of Aubry’s.

“Oh my god, it’s happening, HK, it’s happening, holy shit,” Damian whispers viciously, tapping HK’s shoulder and Harry’s knee rapidly as if the two of them weren’t already paying desperate attention.

One of the girls, they can’t tell who, leans in a bit more, their faces getting closer. Lucy’s eyes flutter shut and Aubry’s hand slides up her arm to rest on the small of Lucy’s back. Her chin tilts up, their lips just a breath apart, when suddenly a loud _crash_ sounds from their feet.

The girls snap apart quickly, turning to face the heavy ball that had slipped from Aubry’s grip, now rolling idly back towards the other three members of their group.

“No!” Harry, HK, and Damian shout at once as Lucy and Aubry glance at each other awkwardly before quickly whipping around to look anywhere but at the other, the moment shattered.

“Uh, y-you think you got it?” Aubry stutters, turning back to the chairs. Lucy nods quick enough to make her face into a blur before spinning on her heel and grabbing HK’s ball with shaky hands. She pushes more than throws the ball into the aisle, turning away from it before it even hits the floor.

 

“I need to use the restroom,” she says, the words mushing together into near unintelligibility. “Harry can play for me!” she calls over her shoulder, then retreats up to the common area, stumbling on the shallow stairs, her legs wobbly.

“Um,” Aubry says, her voice shaky, “I’m gonna g-get some soda. Anyone want anything?” She tries for a smile, but it ends up looking more like a flushed grimace. Her entire face matches the cherry color of her hair. The three boys shake their heads, muttering their declinations, and Aubry nods. “Okay, I’ll be right back. HK can go for me while I’m gone.”

Once she’s finally out of earshot, HK lets out a frustrated growl. “Damn it! I thought we had them!” he cries, and Damian nods sadly.

“Man, did you see how close they were? Literally _one second_ away from full mouth-to-mouth. If the ball had slipped just a _moment_ later, they would have actually kissed. But now they’re just going to continue as if nothing happened and we’ll be back to square one,” he groans, rubbing his face in anguish. Harry can’t help but chuckle.

“Don’t give up hope, I’m sure they’ll come around. My two best friends in England danced around each other for _seven years_ before they finally admitted their feelings for each other. Hell, it took—” Harry cuts himself off abruptly, feeling like he’s gonna be sick. He had been about to say _‘it took a building literally crumbling around them before they finally kissed,’_ but something stopped him. He hates it, how he can never manage to talk about anything from the war. He wants to, god he wants to. He wants to be able to confide in his friends the way they’ve confided in him, and receive the comfort they’ll undoubtedly be able to give him.

Still, his head prevents him. Constantly reminding him of what happened with his other loved ones once they discovered more about his hardships. He wants to think that it’ll be different with this group, he wouldn’t have to tell them about how he’d _died,_ and seen the ghosts of all his loved ones before walking to face the most terrifying person this Earth had ever seen. They wouldn’t know about _all_ of it, so perhaps it wouldn’t be so sickly sweet. He might actually get something more than horrified pity.

Or he might get just that. He might end up losing all that he’s worked so hard to get, might have to uproot himself _again._ Harry doesn’t want to lose this. He can’t.

“Took what?” Damian prods, bringing Harry back to reality.

“Oh, uh, it took—it took a really long time. For them to kiss.” Harry barely manages to come up with an excuse. This is better, he tries to convince himself. It’s better if they don’t know.

“It’s already _been_ a really long time!” HK laments. “I just want them to suck face and get on with it!” Harry laughs sadly alongside Damian, getting up to finish Lucy’s turn.

They go a full five rounds before Aubry returns, and are halfway through a new game before Lucy does. Neither of them speak of the incident, but they don’t make things awkward, either. They’re just as infuriatingly flirty with each other as before. HK looks quite like he’s ready to explode.

: : : : : : : :

Draco hates travelling by floo. It’s dirty and time consuming and forces him to actually interact with wizarding folk, and while it isn’t as bad in America as it is in Europe, he is not well liked by those of magical inheritance.

Draco knows this, but still he throws a week’s worth of clothes into a shrunken suitcase, researches the nearest international portkey station, and pulls out a dusty pot of floo powder hidden in the back of his closet.

The lobby is blessedly empty aside from the receptionist, who he guides roughly outside and _obliviates_ , sparing him the couple minutes he needs to escape through the dorm’s cozy fireplace as she gains her bearings back and wanders inside, wondering why she ever left in the first place.

He steps into the fireplace, shouting for the San Diego International Portkey Station, then closes his eyes tightly as he throws a handful of the powder at his feet. As Draco flies through the darkness of the floo network he does his best to ignore the tightness in his throat and chest.

The howler’s last words to him after the bombshell— _your father has been killed by Voldemort,_ sweet Merlin—had been a sobbing request for his presence at the manner at the earliest convenience.

“Quiz,” Draco had said stonily, determined not to start sobbing into the phone.

“Yeah Dray? What’s up?” his roommate and best friend’s deep, cheery voice echoed through the receiver, and Draco found he could no longer hold himself together.

“Quiz, my dad died,” he said bluntly as tears began rolling down his face. “My mother needs me in London. C-can you—?”

“Oh my god, Draco, don’t worry about a thing except getting to your mom. I’ll take care of your assignments and tell the director you can’t make any performances until you’re ready.” Quiz’s voice was flooded with concern and love, and Draco’s body wracked with more sobs.

“Th-thank you, thank you s-s-so much, I’m sorry—” he hiccuped, and Quiz shushed him.

“Don’t apologize, Dray, buddy, I love you, don’t worry. It’ll be okay. Just go to your mom. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Thank you,” he choked out, lacing the words with as much gratitude as he can.

“You’re welcome. Call me when you need anything.” Draco nodded, realized Quiz can’t see it, and whispered an ‘okay,’ before hanging up and sprinting to gather his things, tears blurring his vision.

Voldemort. How could the Dark Lord have killed his father? Draco knows his mother to be an honest woman with a sensible head atop her shoulders, which is why the news is so much more troubling than just his father’s death.

Draco has known it’s been coming, whatever hatred the public holds for him is exponentially worse for his father. It was only a matter of time before some vengeful witch or wizard missing a family member stolen from them by the Death Eaters got to him.

But _Voldemort?_ Either his mother has entirely lost her mind—impossible—or it really is true. What other reason would she have to say that?

He lands in one of the many fireplaces at the station, scurrying out of the way for a harried-looking witch that lands immediately after him. With a light blue baseball cap covering his platinum tresses and a slightly darker blue scarf wrapped snugly around his mouth and nose, the wizard at the station’s desk thankfully doesn’t recognize him as a Malfoy, handing him a paper crane after Draco requests a portkey for the city nearest the Malfoy Manor’s property.

“It’ll burn up five minutes after arriving, all you gotta do is hide it from the no-maj’s view and keep it away from any buildings or else you’ll have to pay for the fire damage and the fines for all the trouble it’ll cause with _obliviating_ any witnesses there might be. The ash is biodegradable, this portkey is made from 100% recycled paper, thank you for choosing San Diego International Portkey Station, whatever. That’ll be two sickles.”

Draco hands over the money from his hidden stash of wizarding currency and thanks the bored-looking wizard with a curt nod. Then he steps back from the desk, clutching the crane tight enough to crumple the haphazard origami, and waits. A couple moments pass, then there’s a familiar tug in his stomach, the world flips upside down and inside out, and he’s gulping down cold, crisp English air. The sky is a pale grey, the sun just beginning to rise. There are no houses in sight, he’s just standing in the emerald colored hills he knows roll across the terrain surrounding the Manor for miles.

“Hope this is close enough,” he mutters to himself, then gestures with his wand and _apparates_ to the Manor’s front gates. The war did little to sway his mother’s requirement for constant cleanliness, the gates are still painted a glossy black, the curling ivy still trimmed, the windows still glittering. All looks exactly as he left it, and Draco doesn’t know if he’s relieved or even more apprehensive. The wards let him through easily, his shoes clicking against the cobbled pathway up to the door. The morning air is thick with something much resembling that of a horror movie; the tense sort of silence that tells you something bad is about to happen, giving you warning, but not enough to prepare you. Just enough to make you more scared. His internal orchestra buzzes in a quiet, ominous tremolo.

The ornate silver knocker thuds against the door, harsh and echoing. The hum grows marginally louder.

The doorknob clicks, and there’s a faint scraping noise as the door slowly separates from it’s frame, swinging back at the speed of a snail. His orchestra continues its crescendo.  

A delicate shoulder—covered by the fabric of the dress his mother likes to wear for walks through the gardens—emerges from the crack, followed by a bony elbow, a contoured waist, a cascading skirt. The orchestra is a buzz no longer, slowly working its way towards a ferocious roar.

His mother steps completely into view, and the sound spikes, then disappears. The echoes reverberate through his mind, saturating any memory of this moment with a foreboding E major seventh.

Her dress is stained scarlet.

Dark, horrible, blood-red scarlet.

She wears a tight, forced smile that looks more like a slit across her face.

“Hello, Draco,” she says, and the moment of frozen horror that washed over Draco disappears, he stumbles forward and pulls her into his arms in the same instant that she sways in his direction, unstable on her feet. “Welcome home.”

But this is not home. This is a mere picture of what home should be, but isn't. This home is just a twisted parody of the real thing. 

He decides not to respond.


	6. Daffodils are for New Beginnings

 

Harry is getting anxious. 

The more people file in, both from the doors behind him and from the panels on the side of the stage, the more antsy Harry becomes. He’d thrown that little pamphlet of ads away almost immediately after the kind stewardess handed it to him, but now he wishes he had the distraction. Reading endless articles about ballet and soda pop would have been better than just sitting here, waiting for the music to start.

Waiting for that damned soloist. 

He’s been looking forward to this night all week, but now as he imagines walking up to the stage, flirting with the man and complimenting his angelic playing, a rough ball of frenzied dread begins tearing up his insides. He hates the way that it churns the veggie rolls he’d eaten for dinner around in his stomach, making him want to vomit. 

Vases of brilliant yellow daffodils frame the stage, their star-shaped petals reflecting the floodlights out onto the audience in sparkling golden glory. When Harry takes his glasses off, they look like clouds made out of christmas lights, each petal turned into a circular spot of blurry light against his vision. Harry always liked daffodils, his aunt was keen on the language of flowers—as were her parents, naming both their children after them. Sometimes, while cleaning up, he would flip through her books and read the flowers’ meanings. 

_ Daffodil—Rebirth, new beginnings. _

Harry would fantasize about being reborn into a different home, one where his parents never died, one where he was loved and cared for. Now that he actually  _ has  _ been reborn, he can’t say that the feeling was as glamorous as his childhood self had pictured. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the conductor announces over the crowd, not bothering with a microphone as her loud, rough voice combined with the hall’s acoustics carries the sound easily. Immediately, the lights over the audience dim, and the steady murmur of the people around him diminishes. “Welcome to our performance.”

Harry tunes out as the conductor begins going over the history of their program, a long speech that he had missed the previous night due to his panic attack over the drums. If it wasn’t of any importance to the pieces before, why would it be now? All he is concerned about now is the soloist, whose glorious, sparkling hair is mysteriously absent. Perhaps he sat somewhere else today? 

“Do you know where that soloist is?” Harry whispers to the elderly pair of women sitting immediately next to him after a couple moments of scanning the orchestra. 

“Oh, the handsome viola player?” says one. She’s wearing a striped red and white dress and a thick chain of pearls rests across her chest. Harry nods, blushing.

“He is quite the sight, isn’t he?” gushes the other, whose hair is white as snow and styled into a frizzy afro. Harry’s cheeks heat again at the mention of the soloist. “And such a unique name, too, I can’t quite remember it!”

“Kathy, you old crone, just check the program!—sorry dear, I don’t see him. Perhaps he’s running late? Are you two friends?” the one with the pearls asks. Harry’s heart thuds in his throat. What is everyone talking about with this program? Why is he the only one that doesn't seem to have one? If it has the soloist’s name in it, then it’s worth more to him than gold. Perhaps you have to pay for it at the door.

“May I see the program for a moment?” Harry asks, keeping one ear out for when the conductor stops talking and begins the performance. “I don’t know him, but I’d like to.” The woman with the snowy afro grins widely.

“Of course!” she twitters, and pulls from her purse a folded booklet. “I believe the names of the performers are on the third to last page.” Harry takes the booklet from her and thanks her profusely before unfolding it and seeing… 

The book of ads?! The thing he’s been throwing away all this time, just because he wasn’t patient enough to flip to the  _ third to last page _ ?! Feeling humiliated, Harry flips to the back of the book. The conductor continues to talk, but something she says snags his attention midway through a sentence.

“...soloist will not be attending the performance tonight,” she says, her tone turning somber. Harry finally finds a page—hidden on the  _ fourth  _ to last page for Merlin’s sake—covered from top to bottom in names and brief biographies of each of the performers. What did the woman say he was, a  _ violist?  _ Is that the same thing as a violinist? Harry doesn't know, but he finds a section titled  _ Viola  _ next to  _ Violin II. _ There’s also a  _ Violin I, Cello, Bass, Piano, Winds,  _ and—Harry notes with his nose wrinkled— _ Percussion.  _ His eyes skip over to the viola section and immediately zeroes in on the name with a star beside it, symbolizing that the player is a soloist. 

“...due to family business. Please note the change in the program,” the conductor babbles on just as Harry’s brain registers the name typed neatly next to the star.

_ Draco Malfoy _

Harry reads it again, and then a third time, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. 

_ Draco Malfoy - freshman. _

_ Born into a musical family, Malfoy began his career at age three playing piano under the instruction of his mother who homeschooled him through high school. During this time he developed skill in the harp, cello, violin, and viola—which he cites as his “personal favorite.” Malfoy has garnered international acclaim for his piano and viola playing, and is the only two time winner of the Iris University Viola Concerto Competition. See his profile on the Iris University website for more information.  _

Draco Malfoy. 

Harry wants to think it isn’t true, but when he thinks back to his memory of the soloist—the sharp facial features, the impressive height, and that halo of platinum blonde hair—the similarities are impossible to ignore. Of course, the Malfoy from school had straight hair, while the soloist’s was wild and curly. And the soloist is noticeably more muscular compared to Malfoy’s thin and lanky structure. So maybe…?

No, Harry can’t delude himself into thinking any different. The soloist and Draco Malfoy—ex-death eater, his arch nemesis at Hogwarts, the man no one had heard from since his trial after the Battle of Hogwarts—are the same person. 

Harry hands the program back to the women, and vaguely registers them asking if he found what he was looking for. He nods numbly just as the music begins to swell.

It swims through his ears like static. 

: : : : : : :

“Mother,” Draco breathes, horror draining the blood from his face (as opposed to the excessive amount on Narcissa’s dress). “Mother, when…?”

“I didn’t kill him,” she states bluntly, her hands shaking violently against his shoulders even as her voice comes out smoothly. “I didn’t.”

“I believe you Mother, I do,” Draco scrambles to regain his composure, placing his hand on her back and rubbing reassuringly. She seems to relax a little, but the difference has the same effect as a single drop of clear water would against a sea of ink. “I just need to know how long…” His eyes trail over the crimson of her dress, now dried and making the fabric crisp. He knows from experience that this much blood could take hours to dry onto clothing, if not longer.

“I—I don’t know,” Narcissa explains, still leaning against him. He shifts her in his arms and guides her inside, where he helps her into a pair of more comfortable clothes and bids her sit in their comfiest chair by the fire. He presses a book into her hands, one of the ones off her nightstand, opening it to a bookmarked page and smoothing her hair out of her eyes. She sits, staring at the page, completely despondent. He doesn't think she would be able to sleep like this, even though all he wants is to tuck her into bed and convince her it was all a dream. 

“I understand if you don’t remember, you seem to be in serious shock,” Draco says gently, still petting her hair. She looks up from the book, into Draco’s eyes, and his heart breaks in two. “But do you think you can tell me where he is?” he asks, swallowing over the words that attempt to choke him. 

“The garden,” Narcissa responds automatically. “We were going for a walk in the garden.” Then she turns back to the book, gazing emptily at the yellowed pages. Draco nods and pulls the blanket he’d given her higher up to her waist. 

“Just read and relax, Mother. I’ll be back,” he promises, then with a soft kiss to her temple, he pulls himself away and walks towards the parlor door. His footsteps echo across the marble, singing through the stone hallways. Once a grand and magnificent reminder of his family’s wealth, Draco had marveled at the intricate pillars and paintings lining the halls in his youth. Now their vastness just stands as a symbol of his utter loneliness.

Draco does not want to do this. He winds through the gardens, passing row after row of dazzling flowers, kept vibrant and blooming by excellent spellwork, although their colors are washed out in the greyish morning sky. Each step he takes is just another step closer to a nightmare. Each curve in the path he meanders could be the last before seeing it. 

It’s worse than he imagined. His father lies face up in a vast pool of his own blood. It stretches like spilled ink stretches across paper, the blood so thick and so vast in quantity it’s nearly black. His face and neck, once sharply defined by muscle and bone, is wrinkled, withered, and dry. The pool of red expands about five feet from his body, and Draco notes with absolute terror that it is still expanding. Millimeter by millimeter, it creeps closer to Draco’s feet. This dry husk of skin and bone still has blood to give. 

Draco creeps around the puddle, the color so dark and amount so unrealistic it’s almost comical, easy to imagine that it isn’t what it is. The illusion is shattered upon viewing his father’s left arm.

It’s extended from his body, the underside bared. His sleeve is rolled up to the elbow, giving Draco a perfect view of the tattoo. Or rather, where the tattoo once was. In its place is a bubbling fountain of ruby red blood. As if magnetic to the stones of the garden path, the thick fluid pours down his arm and contributes to the puddle growing quickly into an ocean. Lucius Malfoy’s dark mark is sucking him dry.

Draco’s knees wobble, his vision spins. So much blood. A pale, wrinkled corpse. Sticky blackness, bubbling from his wrist. The ruined Mark. He drops to his knees in the dirt, the scent of rich soil combined with the coppery smell of blood only making him sicker. He vomits, shudders, and cries. His head spins, his heart hurts. Once he’s finished retching until he can muster no more, he lifts his head up and gazes into the garden before him, his back to the mess that used to be his father. His father was obviously alive when it started happening, as there are splatters across the leaves and flower petals around him. Draco imagines the blood bursting from Lucius’s Mark, all of a sudden, like a fire hose. Imagines it bursting over his mother, imagines her horrified expression. He shudders and gags again.

It was right by the daffodils, their brilliant yellow now bathed in red. Draco lets his eyes drift shut, forcing himself to look away from the grisly flowers. 

He never liked daffodils. His mother was named for them, she planted them more than any of her other flowers in the garden she cherished so dearly. She’d explain in her dirty gardening clothes—always disturbingly different from her usual pristine elegance—about how each bulb was a new beginning, a new way to raise them brighter and better than ever. Daffodils are for new beginnings. Then she’d pat the soil where it was planted and smile at him, pinch his cheeks with her muddy gloves. He would whine about the dirt smudges, and she would tilt her head back, laughing. Gardening was always where she seemed happiest.

Daffodils are for new beginnings. 

But Draco knows that’s all bullshit. There are never new beginnings, only continuations of the same sad story. His life should be proof enough. Even after erasing his past, even after hacking away at the tattoo until it was an unrecognizable scar, even after dropping off the face of the wizarding Earth, he can never have a new beginning. Even from across the world, the dark mark continues to haunt him for his mistakes. 

Draco swallows and stands up. He needs to tell the ministry so they can start investigating. Even if they no longer care for the welfare of the ex-death eaters, they might wonder how it actually  _ happened.  _ How the mark drained (and is still draining) the blood from Lucius’s body. 

The skin under Draco’s marred scar tissue twitches oddly, heating up for a moment. He doesn’t have the opportunity to wonder about it, however, because in that moment he accidentally steps on his father’s cane, which has rolled into the pathway and out of the corpse’s bony hand. His legs slip out from underneath him, and as he reaches out to catch himself, contorting so as to avoid the puddle of his father’s blood, he ends up elbow deep in a patch of roses. 

The briars shave long cuts across his forearms, and Draco has the nerve to laugh even as dread bubbles up from his throat.

Daffodils are for new beginnings, and he can’t help but feel like this is the beginning of something  _ awful.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Like what I do? Want to support my work? Just wanna be a cool person and help a brotha out? Buy me a coffee!!  
> https://ko-fi.com/wecara <3


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